The understudied flora, Abune Yosef mountain range, is under pressure from land use changes.rnThis research was conducted to study the vascular plant composition, plant communities,rndiversity, conservation status, species richness pattern along elevation gradient, andrnspatiotemporal land use and land cover change. A total of 85 nested sample plots measuringrn20 X 20 m, 5 X 5 m and 1 X 1 m were established for trees, shrubs, and herbs respectively.rnTopographic, edaphic and disturbance variables were also collected from each plot. IUCN RedrnList and a combination of density of mature individuals, habitat specificity, and species localrnrange was considered to assess global and local rarity respectively. Two Landsat satelliternimageries from 1986 (Thematic Mapper, TM) and 2017 (Operational Land Imager, OLI) werernused. Aerial photographs were used for ground referencing of the 1986 satellite image.rnAgglomerative hierarchical clustering and Shannon diversity index were employed to classifyrnplant communities and quantify community diversity and evenness. Canonical correspondencernanalysis (CCA) was used to describe vegetation-environment-disturbance relationships.rnDescriptive statistics and rarity forms ratio were used for vascular plants conservation statusrnanalysis. To investigate land use land cover change (LULCC), supervised classification usingrnMaximum Likelihood Classifier of two Landsat images from 1986 and 2017 was performed.rnGround reference points and aerial photographs were used for accuracy assessment. Onernhundred ninety nine vascular plant species belonging to 64 families and 155 genera werernrecorded in five plant communities. The most species rich families were Asteraceae 42(21.1%),rnPoaceae 15(7.5%), Lamiaceae 12(6.03%) and Fabaceae 11(5.5%) respectively. Thirty twornfamilies were represented by a single species. The species richness followed a monotonicallyrndecreasing pattern towards higher elevation. Of the vascular plants assessed following IUCNrnRed List criteria, about 5% are threatened and the remaining are of least concern. Locally,rnonly 17 species (8.54%) of the plants revealed common, and the remaining entertained sixrnforms of rarity. The first axis explained 43.63% of the overall inertia and is correlated withrnElevation, pH, slope aspect, total Nitrogen, soil organic Carbon & Clay. On the other hand,rnthe second axis explained 32.06% of the total inertia and is correlated with bulk density, slope,rnlogging, & available Phosphorus. The LULCC results demonstrated that the area of Afroalpinerngrassland has declined by -64.76% over the last 31 years, from 10, 500 ha to 3700 ha. Otherrnrndeclines were seen in grazing land (-72.15%, 5,900 ha), open woodland from (-100%, 3,900rnha) and shrubland (-7.04%, 2,500 ha). On the other hand, agricultural land area has increasedrnfrom 38, 300 to 48, 700 ha (+27.15%), barren land from 5,400 to 8,900 ha (+64.81%), rivers,rnriverbeds and gullies from 1,100 to 3,700 (+236.56%), plantation forests from 2,500 to 4,700rnha (+88%) and urban settlements from 300 to 500 ha (+66.66%). The present study revealedrnthat topographic variables have a profound influence on species distribution. Exclusive tornchurch forests, the vegetation cover showed a declining trend over the study period. The mainrndrivers of LULCC were identified as increased human population pressure, and temperaturernand precipitation variability. Since the majority of the plants are rare in the mountain range,rnlandscape level conservation approach by establishing corridors between the vegetation typesrnto maintain ecological and evolutionary processes is recommended.