Floristics Composition of Tomong Forest at Sambas, West Kalimantan

Tomong forest at Sambas regency is a restricted tropical forest along Sambas riverbank area. The forest have been threatened and decreased due to development of oil palm plantation and human settlement. The plant plant diversity and natural ecosystem in this area should be conserved soon. Sambas botanical garden establishment, which is a serious effort to conserve this forest. Plant Inventory has been conducted on July 15-20, 2008, as the first step to prepare establishing the botanic garden. The floristic composition is a basic important data for botanic garden development planning. The result of inventory shows that there were 153 species of 433 individual trees in the plots sampling with total size of 10 ha (3.3% of total area). These species occurred in three-habitat type on the forest area i.e. riparian, freshwater swamp and heat forest. Dipterocarpaceae is the most important family and as an emergent tree in Tomong forest, there were 17 species in 5 genera belongs to this family, with totally 60 individual trees particularly growing on the sites ≥ 50 m asl. Other important families are Leguminosae, Myrtaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Sapotaceae. Biosfera, vol. 26 no. 2 Mei 2009