1 CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECO-PALYNOLOGICAL STUDIES OF etc ..... ern Desert. These reports include the follow- ings: De Cosson (1935), Larsen (1957), Butzer (1959), Saad (1959), Fairbridge (1962), Saad & Sami (1967), Sami (1978), Saad & Ghazaly (1976), Mehringer et al. (1979), Adamson et. al. (1980), Ahmed (1981), Hassan (1981), El- Shenbary (1985), Ritchi (1985), Ritchi et al. (1985), Ayyad (1988), Ayyad et al. (1992), El- Khatib (1992), Azzazi (2000, 2008), El-Amier (2005), etc. Thus, scientific projects aiming at throwing more lights on the pollen grains of the plant life of Egypt’s phytogeografical re- gion, and their relation with the surrounding environments as well as to determine their ec- onomic and medicinal values ought to be INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Pollen grains, the microscopic male repro- ductive cells of the flowers, are of economic and medicinal values. Palynology, the science of pollen grains, attracts the attention of sci- entists worldwide particularly the botanists, archaeobotanists, entomologists, pharmacolo- gists, phytochemists, climatologists etc. In Egypt, as far as the authors are aware, paly- nological studies on the current and past veg- etation types don’t cover all phytogeographical regions of the country. They are restricted to the Mediterranean coastal land, oases and de- pressions of the Western Desert, Nile Delta, Nile Fayium and southern section of the East- CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECO-PALYNOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECO-PALYNOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTAL DESERT OF EGYPT THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTAL DESERT OF EGYPT Zahran, M.A, El-Ameir, Y.A. and Hammad, M.E. Zahran, M.A, El-Ameir, Y.A. and Hammad, M.E. Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Egypt ABSTRACT ABSTRACT The present paper is an attempt to describe the present status of the plant life inhabiting the four habitats of the coastal Mediterranean belts of four governorates namely Damietta, Al- Dkahlyia, Kafr El-Sheikh and El-Behira of the Nile Delta. Also the pollen grain characteristics of eleven plant species namely Lotus halophilus, Echinops spinosus, Zygophyllum album,Phoenix dactylifera, Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum,Phragmites australis, Thymelaea hirsuta, Limonias- trum monopetalum,Bassia indica and Juncus rigidus have been described. Vegetation analysis was conducted in 70 stands representing the four habitats of the study area 20 stands in each except 10 stands in reed swamps habitat. The results revealed that the total number of species was 101 belong to 28 families with great- est number of species belong to families Poaceae (23 species), Astraceae (14 species) and Che- nopodiaceae (13 species).The pollen grains of the eleven species investigated revealed that most of pollens related to Prolate Spheroidal, tectum reticulate or psilate. On the basis of aperture types pollen grains of most families are grouped under three distinct types, namely colporate, colpate and porate. On the other hand, pollen grains of some families e.g Juncaceae and Thyme- laeacae are inaperturate. Key words: Key words: Deltaic Mediterranean Coastal Desert, Pollen grains, morphology, Ecology. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 2014; Vol. 43, No. 1 : 1-22