DIVERSITY OF FERNS (PTERIDOPHYTA) IN THE SEVERAL MOUNTAINS OF WEST JAVA

The diversity of ferns (Pteridophyta) in the five mountainous in West Java (Mt. of Patuha, Papandayan, Tangkuban Perahu, Pangrango, and Guntur) has not been widely reported. The aim of this research was to obtain data on diversity and similarity of fern species in the five mountains in West Java. This research was conducted by exploring and descriptive analysis method. Comparison of species diversity among all reseach field were calculated by the index of species similarity according to Sorenson. The diversity of ferns in Mt. Patuha, Papandayan, Tangkuban Perahu, Pangrango, and Guntur were 27, 14, 26, 40 and 5 species, respectively. The total number of ferns species in five locations are 83 species from 25 families. Comparison of species diversity among fileds based on the Sorenson similarity index is low (<50%), except between the Mt. Patuha and Mt. Papandayan areas is high (> 50%).


INTRODUCTION
A fern is one species of interesting flora in Indonesia. The number of this species in the world is estimated there are 10,000 species, and about 22% or 2,197 species in Indonesia. A total of 515 species of this plant were found in Java Island (Wahyuningsih, Murniningtyas, & Effendy S, 2016).
The ferns have a distinctive form of young leaves, shaped like a loop of rope (krozier; ental), which is not found in other plants. In addition, all of these species produce spores that form in sporangium (Yusuf, 2010a); (Nasution dkk, 2018); (Tjitrosoepomo, 2009); (Arini, D. I. D. and Kinho, 2012); (Prastyo, W.R., Heddy, S., 2015). Ferns are grouped into cryptogamae that have vessels and prefer to grow in moist areas; therefore about 65% are found in tropical rainforest areas (Hietz, 2010).. According to previous paper (Kessler, 2010), in general, species of ferns grow abundantly in mountainous areas compared to the lowlands.
The ferns have a role both ecologically and economically.
Ecologically, the existence of ferns acts as a producer in a food chain and components in the nitrogen cycle.
The research on various aspects of ferns in several regions in Indonesia has been carried out before, including about distribution of ferns Mt. of Selamat (Widhiastuti, 2006), the relationship of several species of ferns of the Polypodiaceae family (Nurchayati, 2010) and ex situ and in situ efforts at Kebun Raya Cibodas (Nasution, 2015

Data analysis
The identification process was carried out in the Plant Taxonomy Laboratory, Department of Biology,

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural
Sciences -UNPAD by referring to the identification key book, namely, i.e.
Aspleniaceae is a member of a family of ferns (Pteridophyta) of the "paku sejati" Guntur. The regional names of these species of ferns are "paku perak" (Pityrogramma callomelanos) (Fig 1.(d)) and "paku emas" (Pityrogramma chrysophylla) (Fig. 1(e)). This species of ferns is very suitable for ornamental plants (Sastrapradja S, Afriastini JJ, Darnaedi D, 1979). The Aspidiaceae family was also found at the study site, from the Pteridophyta group and the order of "paku sejati" (Filicales). This family represents all the ferns commonly found in the forest (Yusuf, 2010b). From this family, 7 species are found which come from 3 genera, namely Arachnoides, Heterogonium, and Tectaria.
The tectaria genus was only found all at Mt. of Gede Pangrango, not found in other research locations. Tectaria crenata is the most recognized species of the genus Tectaria, in the regional language known as "paku kikir". Tectaria crenata ( Fig. 1(f)) is one of the ferns that grow in the highlands, up to a height of 1500 m.

Comparison of species diversity at the research field
Comparison of species diversity in all study locations is shown in Table 2.
Species similarity among all regions compared is expressed by the Sorenson similarity index. The similarity index value is divided into two criteria, if the index value> 50%, it means that the similarity of species is high and if the index value <50% means the similarity of species is low.