Nandi Forests of Kenya

Nandi forests are situated in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, close to Kakamega forest. From literature, it has been confirmed that Kakamega and Nandi forests were connected to each other forming,one big 'U' shaped forest block till the beginning of 1900s. Currentlly, due to human pressure,this one block forest is fragmented into three different forests. In this study, a total of 321 vascular plant species from 92 families and 243 genera were identified in Nandi forests (both South and North Nandi forests). In South Nandi forest, 253 plant species form 82 families and 201 genera were recorded while in North Nandi 181 species from 67 families and 155 genera were recorded. Jackknife second order estimator gave the highest species richness estimate for both South and North Nandi forests i.e. 284 and 209, respectively. Asteraceae, Rubiaceae and Euphorbiaceae are the top three species rich families of Nandi forests. Nandi forests have three different plant communities. North Nandi forest has higher basal area than that of South Nandi. In the highly and less disturbed parts of South Nandi forest, 138 and 172 vascular plant species, respectively, were recorded.