Cape Hangklip area. I. The application of association-analysis.homogeneity functions and Braun-Blanquet techniques in thedescription of south-western Cape vegetation

[摘要] Releve data were collected in two phases from, respectively 150 and 100 sampling points distributed by stratified random means through almost 24 000 ha of vegetation. Association-analysis, Braun-Blanquet and homogeneity function methods were used to treat the data. Only the "normal” association-analysis method was applied. Three sorting techniques for tabulating the data were tested and were compared with a fourth method. Homogeneity functions were used to construct a dendrogram and to determine the degree of similarity between individual releves and groups of releves. After compaiison of the methods, it was concluded that the Braun-Blanquet method is consistently more efficient and more exact, even in the floristically rich vegetation of the south-western Cape Province of South Africa.