THE COURTYARD AS AN HABITAT FOR SPONTANEOUS FLORA - FLORISTICAL INVESTIGATIONS WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE CENTRAL AREA IN FARMS

To find out whether the courtyard of conventional and ecological culti vated farms is still a habitat suitable for spontaneous plants,;he flo ra of 8 farms in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony (Germany) have be en examined during August 1998. The study describes relations between number of species and conditions of the habitat. The total number of 2 06 plant species elucidated that courtyards have still the potential q uality, but there was a poor variety in composition of species. The mo st plane species founded are weeds as well as such representatives fro m Plantaginetalia majoris. In special case the number of species is no r related to the vastness of the courtyard, and not related to the num ber of biotops: The number of species of the existing plant associatio ns is already reached at small courtyards, and probably the difference s between the types of biotops are too negligible for to settle spezia lized plants. Comparing both types of cultivation ecological cultivate d farms showed a trend to a higher number of species on their courtyar ds than conventional cultivated. Furthermore the two only protected sp ecies have been found only in ecological cultivated farms.