A survey is presented of the vegetation of the central region of the Santafesinian Chaco (Argentina), a scarcely populated fiat area of 20 000 km 2, with seasonal flooding. Soils have a strong halo-hydromorphic character and vegetation is basically halophilous. Trees are scarce and most communities are savannas, grasslands or swampy vegetation. Twenty-three communities are described, some of them with several variants. The most widespread communities are Spartina argentinensis grasslands, Elyonurus muticus savannas and a complex of hygrophilous communities. The most important communities are distributed in relation to a topographical gradient, and their structure is shaped by recurrent flooding and fire disturbance. Most of the area is virgin land with very little human interference. The phytogeographical position of the area is discussed.

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The River Paraná is the second largest river of South America and its flood plain is covered by different kinds of forests and herbaceous vegetation. It is subject to an annual pulse of flooding; floods larger than the normal annual ones at irregular periods of few year and catastrophic extraordinary floods few times in a century. The last catastrophic flood was in 1983, followed by a short lived high flood in 1992. The catastrophic flood destroyed almost completely the herbaceous vegetation. Our hypotheses are, on the one hand, that the plant communities of this area will be restored rapidly, and on the other, that there will be a succession process which will produce a shift of communities so that, those on the higher part of the elevation gradient will encroach the ones at its lower part.We analyse, by means of the floristic composition, the effect of disturbance induced by catastrophic floods on the vegetation stability and dynamic processes, in an internal depression and pond of the riparian plant communities in an island of the River Paraná valley.The results strongly support the first hypothesis.