The study area. The study area is situated between 220 36/ - 220 39/ North latitude and 910 40/ - 910 42/ East longitude and about 15 - 65 m above mean sea level. The present Eco-park and Botanical Garden is part of the Southern Sitakunda Reserve Forest, which was declared as reserve forest in 1901. Before the constitution of park and garden, it was under Chandranath block of Sitakunda Beat under Baraiadhala Range of Chittagong (North) Forest Division. The total area of Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Eco-park is 808.38 ha (1996 acres). Out of this area 405 ha (1000 acres) are allotted for a botanical garden and the rest 403.38 ha (996 acres) for Eco-park (Alam, 2001). The area is composed of a good number of low, medium and high hills with steep slopes and V-shaped valleys, numerous gullies, dangerous gorges and a few waterfalls and many streams originated from the hills. The hills are elongated along the North-South direction, leaving a wide coast of the Bay of Bengal about 6 - 7 km towards the west. The hills are mainly the part of Garo Hill Range, which belongs to the Pliocene and Miocene epoch of the tertiary period. The soil of the area formed in recent and sub-recent alluvial sediments of tidal and river flood plains and of piedmont alluvial plain and valleys. Soils are yellowish-brown to yellowish red in color and are sandy loam to clay loam with moderately alkaline to widely acidic in reaction. The climate is sub-tropical. Though the southwest monsoon provides the majority of the mean annual rainfall of about 2890 mm, these denuded hill slopes suffer from moisture stress over a period of about 100 days (January- May). Previously the hills of the study area were densely covered with a wide number of tropical broad-leaved timber species with decorative tropical climbers, shrubs and lianas, canes and bamboo species. The old tree branches were also covered with numerous epiphytes (Alam, 2001). Rahman and Uddin (1997) recorded 203 species under 154 genera and 54 families from the entire Sitakunda Forest Reserve. Some of the big to medium sized tree species that previously occurred abundantly in the study area were Dipterocarpus costatus, Hopea odorata, Tetrameles nudiflora, Artocarpus chama, Bombax ceiba, Bombax insigne, Albizia chinensis, A. procera, A. odoratissima, Duabanga grandiflora, Quercus gomeziana, several species of Castanopsis such as Castanopsis lancifolia, C. tribuloides and C. indica, Firmiana colorata, Sterculia villosa, Dillenia pentagyna, Schima wallichii, Artocarpus lacucha, Amoora wallichii, Aphanamixis polystachya, Stereospermum personatum, Terminalia bellirica, Vitex glabrata, V. limonifolia, Lannea coromandelica, Garuga pinnata, Protium serratum, several species of Syzigium such as S. claviflorum, S grandis, S. formosum and S. macrocarpum, Cassia fistula, Gmelina arborea. The middle to small sized tree species that occurred abundantly were Callicarpa tomentosa, Macaranga denticulata, Phyllanthus emblica, Cordia dichotoma, Aporusa dioica, Hollarhena pubescence, Ficus hispida, Haplophragma adenophyllum, Microcos paniculata, Pterospermum semisagittatum, Lagerstroemia speciosa, Excoecaria indica etc. Species common to near the streams were Saraca asoca, Vitex negundo, Streblus asper, Trewia nudiflora, Ficus semicordata, Sarcochlamys pulcherrima, Alpinia nigra, many aroids and ferns. Many species of Calamus particularly C. erectus, Daemonorops jenkinsiana and bamboos such as Melocanna baccifera, Schizostachyum dullooa, Gigantochloa andamanica occurred in the forest. Woody vines such as Entada phaseoloides occurs in the drier parts of the forest. Now the scrub forest is composed of shrubby vegetation, sun grass (Imperata cylindrica) and other tall grasses such as Saccharum spontaneum, Narenga fallax, Thrysanolaena maxima. Over-cut bamboos of the species Melocanna baccifera along with sporadic saplings coming as coppices from stumps and the root suckers cover most of the area. Sampling method and collection of data. The study area is composed of a number of low and high hills having peak slopes and streams covered with thorny bush and climbers. Coppice shoots and root suckers occurred in a scattered manner that apparently had no spatial uniformity. Therefore, a systematic sampling method was chosen. Out of the 20.25 ha of ‘regeneration cut’ area, some places were not accessible and some places were set aside for breeding grounds for animals. Therefore, those areas were avoided, while doing the sampling. 50 equidistant circular plots each of 5.05 m radius were laid out in the field. Each plot was 80 m2 and thus 50 plots covered 4000 m2 or 0.4 ha. The sampling intensity was 1.98%. Regeneration was identified as to whether it was a coppice originating from stump, or a root sucker or a seedling. Height of individuals of each species within a plot was measured from base to the apical bud of the seedling by a marked bamboo pole; however, individuals below 1 m height were not measured for actual height. Each individual tree species was identified by vernacular names in the field. Twigs with leaves were brought to laboratory for identification to family, genera and species levels. Scientific names of the regenerating plant species were obtained using Das and Alam (2001).