**4.1 Species richness and abundance**

The study explored the presence of 67 plant species of 26 angiospermic families and 51 genera belonging to different strata i.e. tree, shrub and herb from FA, P and DA of Jajang Iron and Manganese Ore Mine (JIMOM) (**Tables 2**–**4**). From FA 62 plant species were recorded which includes 34 trees, 6 shrubs and 22 herbaceous species (**Tables 2**–**4**). However, in plantation only12 tree species were recorded. The number of tree species enumerated in FA was more or less 3 times of P. Tree species found similar to both FA and P are *Acacia nilotica*, *Samanea saman*, *Albizia lebbeck*, *Dalbergia sissoo*, *Madhuca indica*, *Gmelina arborea* and *Xylia xylocarpa*. Of these, *Samanea saman*, *Dalbergia sissoo*, *Albizia lebbeck* and *Gmelina arborea* performed better in "P" only. On the other hand, *Xylia xylocarpa* performed well in both. Compared to tree and herb layers, the diversity of the shrub layer in terms of the number of species was too low. Only six species of shrubs from families Lythraceae, Sterculiaceae, Oleaceae, Rubiaceae, Flacourtiaceae and Fabaceae were recorded from FA (**Table 3**). In the herb layer, all the 22 species were enumerated both from FA and DA and included under 3 families namely Caryophyllaceae, Cyperaceae and Poaceae. Based on species dominancy family Poaceae was species rich followed by Cyperaceae and Caryophyllaceae (**Table 4**). High species richness of trees in FA as compared to plantation may likely due to the high level of structural complexity and stratification of vegetation to attract wild animals which acts as the seed dispersers required for seed germination. Dispersal of seeds spatially by the dispersers to a greater extent and germination of seeds in newly arrived areas may one of the ways to maintain high species richness in FA. Inversely low species richness of trees in plantations may be due to lack of seed source and litter deposition and decomposition on the soil surface of plantation [30]. Further Plantations are mostly monocultures or include few species of interest leads to low species richness [4, 29].
