Conservation of vegetation on the paddy field embankment in Asuka village [Nara, Japan]
2000
Baba, T. (Shinshu Univ., Minamiminowa, Nagano (Japan). Faculty of Agriculture) | Itoh, S.
Asuka village is an ancient city of Japan. Since there have still been many remains in it, the whole area of the village has been designated as a historical and cultural conservation area by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. It is supposed that many paddy fields were made stepwise (tanada) over the hill slope in the village as the important economical base in ancient time, and this supposition is supported by the wide variety of plants, which perhaps grew at the paddy field embankments, described in the Man'yoshu. Although one thousand and several hundred years have passed already, the tanada fields in the village have been kept without so big changes throughout the historical age and. further, could escape from the enforced re-arrangement of agricultural fields in recent years. Therefore, the vegetation described in Man'yoshu can still be observed in and around the fields. Especially, the vegetation on the embankment of paddy field, consisting of various kinds of grasses familiar to farmers, has been maintained carefully by them as an important part of the paddy field control. In recent years, however, by the increase in the number of abandoned paddy fields, the vegetation on paddy field embankments has begun to change rapidly and the maintenance of Man'yoshu plants has also come to a crisis. So, in order to get the basic data for the conservation of vegetation in the Asuka village, plants on paddy field embankments in areas around the Stone Stage (Ishibutai) in the village was searched in this study. Results showed that the original vegetation on the embankment has still been maintained. There are three types of the vegetation in which. Miscanthns siensis (Susuki), Imperata cylindrica (Chigaya) and Zoysia japonica (Noshiba) are dominant plants, respectively, and the chigaya dominating type is further classified into 5 groups by coexisting dominant plants
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