The ruderal flora in the urban environment: floristic survey in residual spaces and cultivation of an experimental garden in Bauru (SP)

• Grant number: 23/14204-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): February 01, 2024
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Landscaping
• Principal Investigator: Arthur Simões Caetano Cabral
• Grantee: Marcos Antonio Ernesto Pin
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes, Comunicação e Design (FAAC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project consists of detecting and analyzing small plants that grow and develop spontaneously in vacant lots or residual spaces, infiltrating the city landscape. This is a wide spectrum of plant species, native or naturalized, adapted to unfavorable environmental conditions. Although it often occupies a derogatory place in the urban imaginary, under the generic name of "bush", ruderal flora presents qualities and potentialities to be investigated: the values of persistence, vigor and constant renewal of survival tactics. Distributed in a fragmentary manner in the urban environment, the ruderal flora includes species that are still little recognized or studied in landscaping. In certain cases, the occurrence of these plants indicates natural tendencies towards the recovery of degraded or abandoned areas, where the dynamics they establish among themselves contribute to the germination of more demanding species, favoring floristic diversification in profusions of arrangements. This proposal is valid for areas of consolidated urbanization or in the process of consolidation. In this way, a large number of cases that occur not only in the city of Bauru, but in many Brazilian cities, can be covered by the research procedures proposed here. Photographic records and field notes will accompany botanical collections and herbalization, among other records. The seeds to be extracted, when possible, will be selected and introduced into an experimental garden on the UNESP campus, to be studied continuously throughout the research.