INTRODUCTION

(Figures to be appended later)

Purpose
This book intends to familiarize inclined persons, whether professional botanist or not, to
the commonest of the Indian trees. The book covers whole of India excluding the Himalayas, a
region substantially differing from the remaining country due to a flora that is biogeographically
different, diverse, well described and illustrated. This book provides a field identification key
and descriptions of habit, leaf and bark characters, habitat preference, geographical distribution,
seasonality and other important aspects including technical ones like the nomenclature.

The book is a contribution to the series Lifescape published by the Indian Academy of
Sciences. The objectives of the book, as of the series, include familiarizing the reader, primarily
amateurs with common, important and interesting Indian biota. The book may be useful even for
technical experts or specialists, as a comprehensive reference. The book may also serve as a
resource material for teaching college botany and will inspire more amateur naturalists than
today.
Excellent job has been done in these directions by the phenomenal `Book of Indian Birds
scripted by the doyen of Indian natural history Dr. Saalim Ali. The book has triggered scores of
people from all walks of life to pursue bird watching. This inspired springing of several bird
watching clubs, including in schools and colleges allover the country. Of late, this informal
movement has consolidated itself to conduct a formal annual bird count every year on Dr. Salim
Alis birth anniversary. The data compiled together is a crucial contribution to monitoring the
quality of our living environment. Trees are common and important, useful organisms, if not as
charming or appealing as birds; around us everywhere, from mountain forests to sea coasts and
from villages to mega-cities. Thus, the lack of a simple, attractive and useful fieldguide is
unfortunate, painful and hard to explain.

Earlier work

Number of noteworthy attempts to bring out a fieldguide for trees fall short of Dr. Saalim
Alis job on several counts. This book has causally tried to avoid several drawbacks from which
the earlier attempts suffer, as described below. However, there is no claim that the present book
is any match for Dr. Saalim Alis work, although that remains the intention.

The

best

known of the books of Indian trees is the one by Charles McCann, a British botanist earlier in the
century. It remains till date a very well illustrated and elaborately written book with very
interesting anecdotes and writing style. It covers about 100 species, many of them exotic i.e.
introduced from abroad but widely cultivated in India. A similar book by Blatter and Millard
covers nearly half the species, again mostly exotic. Amongst Indian authors, the book on
common trees by Santapau is comprehensive with good line drawings. It covers barely 60
species, unfortunately most them are exotic. A very similar book is that on beautiful flowering
trees by Randhawa, with some more species, including indigenous ones. The first effort of giving
due representation to many indigenous species amongst 100 species covered was done of late by
Bole and Vaghani in their fieldguide to common Indian trees. The field identification key is an
innovative approach though replete with technical terms and presented unattractively. The book
suffers from very poor illustrations and makes an information packed yet drab reading.
The latest book on Indian trees by Sahani is excellent and may stand up to Dr. Alis
work, but for its coverage limited to just 100 species. It gives much better representation to
indigenous species, for instance Himalayan and Western Ghats, than other books. The number of
species covered in most of these books is around 100, which appears too small to adequately
represent the diversity of Indian trees. The strength of Sahani's book lies in its superb line
drawings and elaborate yet attractive information, only next to that by McCann. The least
known and perhaps the best of all the books is the one by NCERT which covers some 225
species, with adequate representation to most important wild species from every region of India.
Line drawings have are neat and attractive. Despite being catchy, focussed and having most
smooth flow, the description is meager. Lastly one must appreciate the well-illustrated volumes
of fieldguide on Himalayan flowering plants by Poulnin and Stainton. The description is brief
yet informative and covers all important species especially from Western Himalayas. This makes
it unnecessary to repeat the same here. The photographs are unmatched.

Scope
The Indian tree flora comprises of nearly 2000 species belonging to about 800 genera and
150 families of flowering plants. This vast diversity ranks 10 th in the world and even higher
relative to the area. Of these, peninsular (see Fig. 1) i.e. in a broad sense the extra Himalayan,
India hosts some 800 species from 250 genera and 125 families. This includes majority of the
cultivated and exotic species. Nearly 40% of the Indian trees species are Indo-Malayan i.e.
widely distributed in south-east Asia besides India. The proportion of Indo-Malayan elements is
higher in the deciduous forests (see Fig. 2) that shed most of leaves during spring. The species
shared with Africa or widely distributed in the tropics are less than half of this, their proportion
being higher in the drier, thorny, desertic vegetation as in the western India. The evergreen
forests from the Western Ghats and north-eastern India have predominance of endemic species
i.e. those restricted to India as a whole or only to those regions. These endemic elements
comprise up to 60% of all species in the broad leaved evergreen forests, confined to these
regions. The temperate, needle leaved forests of upper Himalaya have species widely distributed
in highlands till Europe in the west and Japan in the east. Amongst introduced tree species, south
American contingent is most significant. Such contribution of various biogeographic elements
due to land connectivity and climatic variety, besides human aided introductions has made Indian
tree flora so diverse.

The book describes and illustrates 165 species belonging to about 140 genera and 50
families. Besides, about 200 species resembling the described ones are mentioned in the passing,
emphasising their distinctive characters but not description. Available information on tree
enumeration by the forest department and ecologists suggests that the species covered by the
book, which are amongst the commonest, might cover over 95% of the standing trees in the
region. It covers most species comprising the less diverse deciduous forest and fewer in the
evergreen forests, which are hyper-diverse. Of the species covered 15% are distributed in a wide
variety of vegetation types (i.e. are `wide niched or `generalists) while 20% are restricted to
single vegetation type (i.e. are `narrow niched or `habitat specialists).

About 90% of the species described are found in the forests and scrub i.e. natural
vegetation. However, only half of them are exclusive, the remaining are also inhabit or are

cultivated in the plantations and generally around human habitations. Of the total species, some
80% are found in forests, little less than half of them exclusively so. Nearly 60% of the species
inhabit degraded vegetation such as savanna and scrub, only 15% being exclusive. Amongst
forests, nearly three fourth of the species are found in moist forests, whether deciduous or
otherwise, but less than half of them are exclusive. Nearly two third of the species are found in
evergreen/ semi-evergreen forest, nearly a third being exclusive. The manmade habitat types viz.
plantations and habitation surroundings host little less than half the total species but just one
fourth of such human related i.e. about 10% of the total species, are exclusive to human
company. The most speciose i.e. species rich habitat type is semi-evergreen forest while type
with highest proportion of restricted i.e. specialist species is the evergreen forest. Scrub mostly
hosts the widespread species. This overall pattern of species representation in the book broadly
mimics the pattern of distribution of overall tree flora.

The intended nature of contents of various sections used in species description in the
book is as below.

Field identification characters

A tree, by foresters and ecologist's definition, is a woody plant that attains diameter of
10cm (30cm girth) or more at the breast height (130cm above ground). A limit of 4cm diameter
(10cm girth) is used occasionally such as in the tree felling regulations of the municipal
corporations in India. The trees differ from other plants in having cambium tissue that accounts
for the woody nature of the stem. Trees differ from shrubs (see Fig. 3) which are also woody.
Shrubs branch extensively from the base near the ground while the trees branch much above and
usually have a single stem emerging from the ground level.

Traditionally, trees were identified and described with emphasis on reproductive

characters like flowers and fruits. This method works well with herbs, which are annual, thus
lacking distinguishing characters like the bark and easily enabling collection and preservation of
the whole plant. Use of reproductive characters may be necessary for proper botanical
classification of trees. However, use of reproductive characters for day to day identification by
field biologists or amature naturalists is difficult and unnecessary. For, the flowers and fruits of

trees may not be available during most of the year when the trees can be visited unlike herbs that
are visited generally during limited flowering/ fruiting period i.e. monsoon. Secondly, flowers
and fruits of trees may often be borne at heights beyond our normal reach, atop the 15-20 m tall
tree, making their collection difficult. Moreover, few tree species having large, woody or fleshy
fruits and/ or flowers, make preservation of specimens very difficult.

The characters that one can relatively easily study in case of trees due to year round
availability and being within normal reach and easy to preserve are those of leaf. The bark
characters are also easy to study in the field but not necessarily easy to preserve. The first famous
attempt to use these vegetative characters alone thus avoiding the reproductive ones was by
Whitemore in his field key to Malayan tree flora, which covered over 1000 species. In India, the
credit for popularising such studies goes to Pascal and Ramesh who prepared a well-illustrated
vegetative identification key for some 500 tree species of the Western Ghats. Actually, the first
such key was pioneered by Balsubramaniam et al for 300 species of trees in southern Western
Ghats. A similar approach is adopted here, as its success has already been demonstrated in the
Western Ghats or even richer Malayan tree flora.

How to watch a tree?

Binoculars, so unmistakably used by bird watchers, are useful if not indispensable even
for tree lovers, especially in the evergreen forests with tall trees, many of them bearing small
leaves. Besides, keen observation is needed to locate some basal branches or shoots (see fig. 4)
for closely and reliably observing or collecting leaves, if most branches and leaves are situated
high. If the leaves of a particular tree are unavailable, it is wise to locate another tree with very
similar stem characters and observe if that tree has any basal branches or shoots. If

the

fresh

leaves are any way not available, one must bow low to observe the ground litter (see fig. 5). It is
a delight to identify trees overheads just by looking beneath, at the fallen leaves, flowers or
fruits, along a forest walk. In a dense forest, leaves of many species are mixed in the litter. Thus,
one must ascertain the most abundant leaves at a spot and assume them to be fallen from the
branches overhead, belonging to the nearest tree. However, it is necessary to ensure that the tree
overhead is in its leaf shedding phase, as evident from few yellowish or reddish leaves and
unusually empty branchlets. Otherwise, it is likely that the nearest tree has shed most of its

leaves long ago, dumped at the bottom of the litter, covered by the recently fallen leaves of other
neighbouring trees. Upon obtaining the leaves, it is very useful to crush and smell them, hold
against sunlight to observe extra-marginal transparent ring or glands along the petiole, margin
teeth or on the surface (see Fig. 6). It is equally useful a habit to carry a small knife for making a
small cut on the bark and observe the blaze, sap secretion or smell, if any. A field identification
key based on these characters is provided in Annexure 1). Besides, lists of species with peculiar
appearance when in new leaves or fully flowered stage are provided in Annexure 2.

Taxonomic classification
The basic unit of biological classification is a species. Though several definitions of
species exist, the simplest and the most widely known one states that a species comprises of the
set of individuals that can interbreed and produce fertile offsprings with the same characters as
parents. Thus, though lion and tiger can interbreed to produce tilons or ligers, those are not
fertile. Hence, a lion and a tiger do not belong to the same species.

Several species with some common basic features constitute a genus. For instance,
several species that resemble in having round, fleshy, edible fruits; have evergreen, oval-elliptic
leaves with obscure secondary nerves and sour taste; have bark with reddish blaze exuding
yellowish sap when cut; belong to genus Garcinia. Similarly, many thorny species with doubly
compound leaves and round flowers with numerous stamens rough bark belong to genus Acacia.
The species within a genus often look alike in terms of vegetative characters and sometimes
differ only in the reproductive characters like in case of the genus Acacia.

Several genera similar to each other and distinct from others make up a family. For
instance, the mango, cashewnut, marking nut, and related trees from other genera make up the
family Anacardiaceae. Some vegetative characters also are common to the whole family. For
instance, all the Myrtaceae i.e. Eucalypt family members have leaves with transparent
gland-dotted surface; all Rutaceae i.e. lemon family members have fragrant leaves with
transparent gland dotted surface. In simpler terms, species are like offsprings in the smallest
human family belonging to one genus. The genus is like the parents in a family and different
genera like offsprings from that generation. Several such parental siblings make up the whole

family identified by the surname (see Fig. 7). In usual description, it suffices to mention the
identity of species and the genus but not the family, which becomes obvious to the botanist once
the genus is known.

Scientific Nomenclature
Linneaus, the great 18th century biologist from Britain first introduced the system of
binomial nomenclature i.e. two names, one referring to genus and another to species. The system
probably had its origins in a system then prevalent in Kerala, taught by an Ezhawa medicineman
to Van Rheede, a 17th century Dutch botanist, who used it for describing Malabar plants.
Linneaus later referred this work developed the binomial nomenclature system further, soon
becoming popular globally. Europeans had just spread world wide then and were actively
exploring new regions and their biota, much of it being new to science. These new species were
constantly getting named and described, and their specimens were being sent to Europe for the
reference of other taxonomists. However, communication was very slow then and taxonomic
publications also very few. A ship from India would take months to reach England and land
journey was neither fast nor easier. Thus, often a species occurring in two different countries or
even continents was separately encountered and described by different names by taxonomists
from those regions with little direct contact, unlike phone, fax, email and airmail available today.

Researchers in Europe had quicker access to museum specimens as well as literature.

They soon realized that the same species was being described by different scientists by different
names. To retain only a single binomial name for one species, rules were evolved. Basically, the
name used first i.e. dated earliest was retained as valid name and the rest were relegated to
synonyms. Besides the date of publication, other criteria were also invoked giving rise to an
elaborate international code of botanical nomenclature. Thus, although the original purpose of
Linnean system of binomial nomenclature was to assign a single name to a species, we have
today most species identified with a set of names one of them valid and the rest synonyms. But
this began not because the system was faulty but due to the communication difficulties.

Further, research on classification and nomenclature constantly reveals older and older
literature sources to researchers. Thus, even the valid names keep changing over time, for some,

if not many species. This book employs most frequently used valid names in recent Indian
publications. Citing the most commonly referred synonyms here may make it is easy to search
the species mentioned here in other literature sources. There is no claim however that the names
cited here as the valid names are in fact valid as per the international code. Intention of the book
is to marry popular information with scientific and not to stretch to any extreme.

Etymology of the scientific nomenclature has been adopted from the excellent book by
Nayar titled `Meaning of the Indian flowering plant names that primarily covers generic names.
Also referred is a simple yet useful book by Dixit, covering generic as well as specific names,
primarily from western India.

Folk nomenclature and folklore

The common English names are available only for a few species, from books cited
earlier. Vernacular names have been largely sourced from a book by the name `useful plants of
India published by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India. It is
unfortunate that etymology of vernacular names which could be very interesting and useful,
flowing from constant interaction of people with live trees rather than limited encounter of the
scientists, primarily with the dead specimens. Interestingly, vernacular names have often
influenced or crept into the Latin nomenclature e.g. Saraca asoca derived from the vernacular
name Ashoka.

It is unfortunate that there are no standard books on folklore associated even with the
most important species. Further, this aspect is neglected in most books to date. The efforts in this
book are thus very preliminary, the only intention being to encourage more people to look at
these vital aspects, with considerable indicative value about properties of species. Some literature
could be found in regional languages, in mythological stories, folk songs etc. which needs
careful collection and study.

History
Several tree species have been introduced in India since centuries and tens of them have
become integral part of Indian landscape and culture such as sandalwood and coconut. Literature
about history of these introductions and further spread in India (see Fig. 8) is available. However,
consensus may be elusive in some cases like sandalwood about area of origin and date and route
of introduction. It is however a very interesting and illuminating study subject having a bearing
on our future relationship with trees. Some introduced species like coconut do not regenerate on
their own and have to be planted through special efforts. Some others like sandalwood spread on
their own through natural regeneration. However, many exotic species are unable to compete
with local species and get eventually edged out by saplings natural trees in the absence of human
intervention such as cutting, grazing, fire etc. Such escape and spread could be attributed to lack
of predator species from the area of origin. But in case the predator reaches this land as happened
in the case of Leucena in early '90s or some other predator gets established, the species
population may suddenly dwindle.

Treatise on forest ecology by Puri et al. and pioneering research by Chandran provide
some interesting insights can be gained in the vegetation history. At least two time-scales can be
visualised, one being geological, ranging over millennia while other being ecological, ranging
over decades or centuries. The Indian vegetation is partly the result of confluence of several
biogeographic elements following the union of Indian mainland with Asian plate during the
geological past. This is particularly true of Himalayas that rose as a result of this collision.
Himalayas are colonised mainly by the temperate and Artict flora ranging from Europe in the
West to Japan in the East. On the contrary, peninsular India, especially Western Ghats and its
evergreen forests are dominated by the endemic elements, not found in other parts of the world.

Most of these endemic species are very old i.e. palaeoendemics while Himalaya mountain
ranges which were borne much later than the Western Ghats harbour some neoendemic species.
Some of the Western Ghats species are very old, such as Atuna indica from family
Chrysobalanaceae, which is extensively diversified in the neotropics and hardly represented in
the palaeotropics. It is likely that some such species in the Western Ghats bear testimony to the
days when continents like America, Africa and Asia constituted a single landmass called

Gondwana. This may also explain some of the similarities in peninsular flora with the African
flora, while much is explained by the continuity of landmass between northwestern India and
western Asia bordering African continent. The latter accounts for similarity in the desertic flora
of the two continents, dominated by the Ethiopian elements. However, much of the peninsular
flora inhabiting intermediate moisture zones between the desertic northwest and the humid
Western Ghats are dominated by Indo-Malayan elements, which largely constitute the deciduous
forests, both dry and moist.

Amongst the most talked about factor affecting forest composition over ecological scale
is tree felling. Besides reduced density of the target species, felling may create canopy gaps,
inviting pioneer, sun-loving species to colonise, especially in the shady, evergreen forests. Forest
fires favour dominance of fire resistant species having thick bark and good coppicing ability like
Careya arborea while destroying the delicate species. Thus, fires may gradually convert an
evergreen forest into semi-evergreen at the outset and later, deciduous forest full of fire tolerant
species. Fires are limited though in the evergreen forests due to prevailing moisture and shade,
including the moist litter on the floor. Deciduous forests and savannas are more fire-prone and
thus interspersed with grassy undergrowth especially in savannas. Local people deliberately put
many of these fires during summer in the belief that the fires would be followed by quick growth
of grass shoots relished by the cattle. The grass seeds survive and even benefit from fires.
Amongst trees, only a few species with hard seed coat survive and benefit. Besides fires, cattle
may also directly destroy the vegetation, particularly saplings. The evergreen trees mostly have
thick leaves that are not relished by the cattle, in contrast to thin leaves of many deciduous
species. Cattle grazing also indirectly affects vegetation due to lopping by the cattle owners for
fodder. Frequent grazing and lopping such as for farm manure favours growth of thorny species
and scrubby vegetation, with many coppice shoots. Such heavily lopped vegetation may also
provide ideal site for infestation by parasitic plants like Viscum and Loranthus. Human harvests
of the other kind such as seeds may cause long term changes, primarily in species composition.

Favourable human influences on vegetation include direct ones like the sacred groves or
protected areas and indirect protection such as through reservoirs. Sacred groves are the oldest
known tradition of nature conservation, since the days of slash and burn agriculture. It still

10

persists strongly in areas of shifting cultivation, while diluted or converted forms like temple
groves in settled agricultural or even semi-urban areas. Religious beliefs and taboos that threaten
deity's wrath following tree cutting in the grove protect these. These must have once dotted much
of the Indian landscape especially in tribal zones like the Western Ghats or North eastern India.
However, their number rapidly declining for the last few decades given the impact of overall
socio-economic development and concomitant fading of religious faith. Sometimes, felling the
majestic trees from the grove yields handsome returns. Many groves shelter relics of past,
pre-human intervention vegetation, often different from surrounding vegetation. For instance, the
groves may harbour many evergreen species in high rainfall zone though the surrounding forests
might be replete with deciduous species favoured by canopy gaps due to tree felling, besides
fires and grazing, usually not influencing the grove.

Recent times saw traditions of nature conservation taking the form of royal hunting
preserves in the Mahabharata and Mughal era while that of `game reserves' during the British
era. This gave way to numerous wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in the independent India
which now cover over 4% of the country's landmass. Number of reservoirs came up in this
period, submerging invaluable forests. However, the reservoirs also cut off the access of felling
officials and smugglers, local people to the forests, resulting in protection of forests remaining in
the catchment, Periyar tiger reserve being a classic example. Some of the promotional measures
may include encouraging artificial regeneration such as extensive tree plantations or aerial
seeding etc., primarily focussing on exotic commercial species, not natural vegetation. Some
measures may include coppice growth of natural yet economically valuable species like the Sal
tree.

Interplay between such protection measures and the degrading forces on the other create
a mosaic of vegetation types in a landscape, in a dynamic equilibrium or even change, known as
succession. The degradation may change an evergreen forest into semi-evergreen and later, moist
deciduous forests, to be followed by woodlands or `open forests' in forestry terminology. Further
felling, lopping, grazing may lead to dwarfing of the trees and growth of shrubby ground cover,
giving the vegetation an appearance of scrub i.e. admixture of trees and shrubs to begin with and
later thickets i.e. clumps of only shrubby growth. On the other other hand, frequent fires may

11

consume shrubby growth and favour grass growth, amidst scattered trees, giving rise to savanna
physiognomy. Further fires may even make the trees shrubby, changing vegetation type into
`shrub savanna' before degrading into grassland. Such vegetation degradation processes is
termed as retrogression while upgradation is termed progression. Progression is the reverse of
degradation, for instance, upgradation of scrub or savanna into forest. The progression may not
proceed beyond the maximum vegetation allowed by the climate and soil, termed as potential
vegetation of a place. Thus, evergreen forests may never grow in drier tracts fit for only
deciduous forests.

These successional processes provide opportunities to species having different

environmental choices to co-exist and even flourish. Successional processes that are natural and
operate at smallest scale may include canopy gaps creation due to treefall, especially in clumps
due to lightening and thundershowers. In the dense canopied evergreen forests such treefalls
provides some sunloving species, unable to germinate or survive under the shade, an unusual
opportunity to colonise and grow. Such species are termed as pioneers species. Some of them
even colonise recent land falls in hilly terrain and other eroded sites. Later, when the pioneer
species grow and produce enough shade and loosen the soil, conserve some soil moisture; late
successional species may start regenerating and growing. Climax species are the last of the late
successional species in chronological sequence and prosper under dense shade and high
humidity. The ecological role played by a species may be defined as its niche, as defined later.

Leaf Shedding
Some trees shed most of their leaves during spring i.e. after winter, in January and
February. Some shed it even or during summer i.e. March to May. Such species that shed their
leaves in bulk are termed as deciduous (see Fig. 9). These are sensitive to soil moisture regimes.
Leaf shedding in bulk minimizes water loss due to evaporation from the leaves. This particularly
helps during dry season, when moisture deficiency is high. Besides, the leafless period followed
by flowering period as the trees can spend most of their nutrition and other investment on their
reproductive organs rather than vegetative organs like leaves. Other species that generally grew
in moist areas with low soil moisture stress are more resistant to minor changes in soil moisture
regimes. These species therefore continually shed and regain leaves, but never in bulk. These

12

species are termed as evergreen. Some evergreen species may even inhabit drier tracts such as
Manilkara hexandra (wild Sapota) dominating the lowlands adjoining the eastern coast.
Typically, evergreen species have dark coloured, thick, smooth and even waxy leaves, so as to
minimize the water loss through evapotranspiration.

Canopy and stem

Trees may be small, medium sized or big at maturity. Some may grow just tall like
Eucalypt while others may even spread horizontally, usually denoted as huge e.g. Banyan. Some
trees may tower above the rest of the top canopy. There are termed as `emergents' Silk cotton
(Bombax ceiba) being a good example. The shape of the tree canopy (see Fig. 10) may be
described as erect (i.e. tall, not wide) like Eucalypt; semi-erect (semi-spreading) like Neem
(Azhadirachta indica) or spreading (umbrella shaped, rounded etc) like Mango (Mangifera
indica). Some canopies may be dense like Jamun (Syzygium cumini) while some may be thin,
as in many Mimosaceae members like Acacia or Albizzia species. Most trees have alternate,
opposite or clustered branches from some distance above the ground, at an angle with the main
stem and pointed upwards (see Fig. 11). Some trees however may have horizontal and whorled
branches like the Kadamba (Anthocephalus indica). A few may have branches drooping down,
the commonest example being the tall False Asoka (Polyalthia longifolia) common in home
gardens. Some species considered here belong to the group known as Bamboos that have a
woody stem branching extensively right from the base. Some species are from the group of
palms which only have a few clustered leaves at the top and no branches, just the main stem.
Some tall tree species develop plank like supports at the base called buttresses (see Fig. 12) by
the upliftment of the roots from the soil followed by flattening e.g. Silk cotton tree (Bombax
ceiba). Some trees do not have such buttresses but possess roots originating from the trunk,
travelling downwards and anchoring in to the soil. Trees with such stilt roots include members of
the Nutmeg (Myristicaceae).

Some trees may have a fluted trunk (see Fig. 13), some

cylindrical.

Bark
The bark texture (see fig. 14) could be rough or smooth and in some cases even glassy
like printing papers. Some trees have bark dotted with pores, termed as lenticels that probably

13

felicitate gaseous exchange. Bark of some trees is cracked or fissured, in some cases only
marked with lines. Some species have bark falling off in irregular shaped pieces i.e. flakes. Some
species have pitted bark, depressions corresponding to fallen flakes. Barks also vary in colour,
gray being the commonest followed by brown, black, white, yellow, green etc. Barks thus
provide a great diversity and thus a useful mirror for distinguishing species. Bark features of a
species vary much more across individuals than the leaf characters. Nevertheless, features across
species are even more variable and hence, bark provides distinctive characters.

Leaves
Leaves are basically classified into two types simple i.e. single and compound i.e.
group of leaflets (see Fig. 15). A leaf is often identified from the bud onwards, usually visible in
its axil. The bud may develop into a new leaf or shoot. The simple leaf has such buds right in the
axil of each leaf. In compound leaves, such buds exist only in the axil of a group of leaflets,
which many novices think as leaf. Further, the base of such compound leaves is usually
thickened for instance the Acacia or Neem. Sometimes the leaf and branchlet are identified from
the difference in colour and texture. Leaf is usually greenish and fleshy right from the petiole i.e.
stalk, the branchlet being brownish and woody. Some families like Euphorbiaceae have leaves
that with basal appendages termed stipules, to protect the buds. Stipules (see Fig. 16) may often
be small and scaly but occasionally large, leaf like stipules are seen as in the Bignoniaceae
family.

The leaves may be arranged alternate, opposite, subopposite or whorled (see Fig. 17). If
the successive pairs of opposite leaves have perpendicular orientation, these are termed opposite
decussate, like the Clusiaceae members. This minimises overshadowing and allows maximum
exposure to each leaf to light. Some trees like Jamun have such leaves on young branchlets but
on the older branchlets, the leaf orientation is the same i.e. they inhabit the same plane. This is
termed as opposite superposed arrangement. Some trees have subopposite leaves i.e. sometimes
opposite and otherwise alternate e.g. Celastraceae and Combretaceae members. Amongst trees
with alternate leaves a few species like mango have leaves closeted at the end of the branchlets
i.e. clustered arrangement.

14

Shapes (see Fig. 18) and sizes of leaves are often characteristic for a species but differ
from one leaf to another or across trees. Characters like glands, small or texture (i.e. rough or
smooth, hairy or smooth etc.) remain relatively constant. Similarly, leaf tip (see Fig. 19) and leaf
base (see Fig. 20) characters vary more than the margin (see Fig. 21). The nervation is also a
peculiar character of not only species but even families (see Fig. 22). Stalk of the leaf, known as
petiole is also a characteristic feature, both when present or absent depending on the species. It
could be cylindrical or flat, channeled and/ or winged, thickened at the tip and/ or base,
sometimes even gland dotted, occasionally clasping the branchlet i.e. amplexicaule (see Fig. 23).
The petiolet i.e. the stalk of the leaflet may also show these characteristics.

Flowers and Fruits

The flowers may be singular or in bunches, called inflorescence, about which much
information is easily available in most taxonomic books, including in college curricula. The
flowers may arise from the leaf axils or from the branchlet terminals i.e. from the tip of the
shoots. While knowledge of shape and size matters a lot for a field identification, knowledge of
floral components is the basis of traditional taxonomy (see Fig. 24). The fruits also could be
simple or compound and dry or fleshy. While sizes and shape matter a lot to a field biologist,
biological classification is taxonomically important (see Fig. 25).

Confusing Taxa
Most tree species may be confused with one species or the other, at least prima facie.
Sometimes these confusing species may belong to the same genus and differ only minutely in
terms of leaves, flowers or fruits. However, species from entirely different genera or families
may also resemble in terms of general appearance, especially when viewed from a distance. The
book adds a line or rarely, an illustration in case of such confusing taxa. This has increased the
total number species referred in the book by a third of the species fully described. Some of the
confusing taxa are however fully described.

Diversity

15

The figures of global species richness of genera and families are largely based on the
voluminous work by Cooke. The value at the global richness at the family level is cross referred
from the famous treatise by Lawrence. The figures for species richness in India have been
computed on the basis of the comprehensive volume by Brandis. The compact book by Santapau
on Genera of Indian flowering plants is also very useful.

The richness levels in the region covered i.e. Peninsular India, often but not always match
the figures for India. The discrepancy is common in case of genera inhabiting evergreen forest
and highlands, topography substantially represented outside besides within the peninsula. But the
figures for peninsular India, often exceed only marginally by those for the Western Ghats. These
have been refereed from the thesis on the Western Ghats endemic plants by Saldanha. The flora
of Tamil Nadu Carnatic by Mathew well represents the values and additions if any from southern
drier areas like Deccan. The flora of Rajasthan by Bhandari, represents the northern desertic
areas well.

Global Distribution
The distribution of taxa is described at two levels i.e. global and Indian. The volumes by
Cooke are an important source and so is the book by Santapau about genera of Indian plants. The
world distribution is basically divided into following categories (see Fig. 26).
a. Oriental south and south-east Asia
b. Ethiopian Africa and middle-east Asia
c. Tropical The region around the equator and within the tropic of cancer in Asia,
Africa and America or atleast two of these continents. Often termed as `pantropical
in the literature. Many species have been introduced from south America. Species
confined to South America are often termed as `neotropical while the species from
Asia and Africa are termed as belonging to the `old world or `Paleotropics.
d. Temperate The region between tropic of Cancer and Capricorn in either or both
hemisphere in any two continents.
e. Artict The region between the poles and the tropic of Capricorn in either
hemisphere.

16

Indian Distribution
The most comprehensive and advanced work on phytogeography of the Indian
subcontinent is by the French Institute of Ecology in Pondicherry, summarized in volumes by
Puri et al. Another classical work is that by Mani which largely reiterates the earlier schemes by
Hooker and his followers, mostly British.

Typically, peninsular India is the triangular landmass south of river Narmada that
penetrates into the sea. But the French Institute works suggest that floristically the region differs
a little from the plains remaining to the north till the Himalayan foothills. Thus, the definition of
peninsular India used by the French Institute and this book covers entire India except the
Himalayas. The area however excludes Andaman and Nicobar islands which have a rich but very
different flora akin to Malayasia and Sri Lanka.

Within this extended Peninsular India exist several floristic regions, chiefly as below (see
Fig. 1):
a. Western Ghats The mountain chain running parallel to the west coast from Mumbai
to Kanyakumari, including the west coast and foothills on the eastern plains.
b. Eastern Ghats The broken chain of mountains from Orissa in the north to Madurai
in the south, parallel to the east coast and within 100-200 km. of it.
c. Deccan The drier plains of central Maharashtra, eastern Karnataka, western Andhra
Pradesh and central southern Tamil Nadu. This southern most area may not be
typically included in the Deccan at least traditionally and may be assigned to
Tamilnadu (and/ or Carnatic) plains.
d. Rajasthan The semidesertic areas of western Rajasthan and Gujarat, even western
Hariyana and Punjab, till the Himalayan foothills in Jammu and Kashmir.
e. Central India Traditionally confined to Madhya Pradesh and south Bihar. The latter
area hosts uplands popularly known as Chota Nagpur plateau. Added here are Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal south of Himalayas, which have a similar flora. Much of
this area is traditionally termed as Gangetic plains and may perhaps even merit
consideration as a separate biogeographic zone from the point of view of grasses,

17

sedges and aquatic life. However, it does not appear to have any different tree flora or
bird and mammalian fauna.

Besides Peninsular India and Himalayas proper, there may be considered a

phytogeographic region termed North-eastern India. This zone is difficult to define as it is hilly
and connected to Himalayas, allowing species influx and similarity. The area includes Assam
plains and Meghalaya, Tripura hills. The mountains from Manipur and Nagaland rise much
higher and directly connected to Himalayas and thus have much the same biota. It may be
included in Eastern Himalayan phytogeographic zone.

Climate and Altitude

Based on the bioclimatic scheme proposed by the French Institute in the book by Puri et
al, following classes have been adopted here, within Peninsular India

18

Bioclimate

Hot

Average

Length

Annual

of

Rainfall

Season

(mm)

(months)

and 200-500

Altitude

Temperature

Typical

Dry above sea mean annual

Regions

level

8 - 10

0-400

25

Rajasthan

7-9

0-1000

22

Central India,

semi-arid
Hot and dry

500-1000

Deccan
Hot and moist

10002000

5-7

0-1000

20

Eastern Ghats,
West Coast

Hot and Humid

2000-7000

3-6

0-1500

20

Western
Ghats, N. E.
India

Cool and Humid

10006000

1-6

1500-2500 15

W.

Ghats

(Nilgiri,
Palani,
Bababudan)

In the Western Ghats region, the French Institute has suggested the following
classification of altitudinal zones, which appears broadly applicable
Low elevation : 0 to 800 m asl
Medium elevation : 800 to 1500m asl
High elevation (montane): 1500 to 2500 m asl.

Habitat Typology
The kind of places inhabited by an organism and described under the term habitat. The
habitat classification is described at three scales there

19

a. VEGETATION TYPE at the scale of hectares. This includes following vegetation

types (refer Fig. 2). The species characteristically inhabiting or even defining these
habitat types are mentioned in Table 1.
1. Forest group of trees with canopies meeting and covering over half the ground.
Often termed as woodlands in old popular books. Divided into evergreen,
deciduous and semievergreen (mixed) categories based on leaf shedding habits of
majority of trees.
2. Scrub group of shrubs, often thorny and densely packed, with a few scattered
trees.
3. Savanna scattered trees interspersed with grasses, herbs or shrubs. Often termed
as woodlands in ecological classification.
4. Plantations These include the traditional `forestry plantations like teak and
Eucalypt with a lot of natural regeneration due to proximity to forests. It also
includes social forestry plantations like that of Australian Acacia, and Eucalypt,
often along the avenues and in fallow lands, wastelands, often away from the
forest and devoid of natural regeneration. Similar are intensively managed private
tree crops of Arecanut, coconut, rubber etc. often termed as `orchards, which are
also included here under the class `plantations.
5. Human habitation This is a very heterogeneous vegetation type in terms of
canopy cover and composition. It includes home gardens, yards of public places,
urban or rural avenues besides the field bunds.

b. STRATUM at the scale of tens of meters. This primarily describes the place of a
species in the vertical stratification of the vegetation such as :
Upper canopy : 20 30m
Middle canopy : 10 20m
Lower canopy: 5 10m
Undergrowth: 0 5m

20

c. HABITAT at the scale of few tens of meters. These include banks of watercourses,
valleys and such moist places, sunny areas like canopy openings and open places
devoid of dense vegetation, eroded sites, rocky scarps etc.

d. NICHE- at the scale of few meters. The habitat preferred by the species reflects its
ecological role. For instance, pioneer i.e. early successsional species mostly prefer
sunny area like canopy gaps or even degraded vegetation and eroded sites like rocky
outcrops. On the other hand, the climax species usually prefer moist, shady localities
such as stream banks and valleys.

Animal Interactions
Information on this vital aspect is most interesting but unfortunately, most wanting. Few
cases described here like in the case of Shorea robusta are only illustrative and intended to rouse
curiosity of the readers to look for more such interactions in the life around. Trees depend a lot
on several insects, particularly honey bees for pollination and in return even provide them with
shelter, besides nectar. The information on this aspect of pollination is relatively better thanks to
the efforts of the Central Bee Research Institute. The trees also depend on several animals
particularly birds and mammals for dispersal of seeds. Many tree species thus invest in making
their fruits fleshy, seat smelling and attractively coloured. Much less is known about this aspect
than could be generated through curious birdwatchers that fail to identify the host species
providing birds the food or shelter, in the absence of user friendly fieldguides.

There is yet another kind of intricate relationship that trees enjoy with insects like
butterflies by serving as their larval food plants. Specific butterfly species lay their eggs only on
particular tree species so that the emerging larvae get the requisite plant chemicals. This includes
for instance, the butterflies from the milkweed (Dannideae) family that raise their larvae on
leaves of plants from Apocynaceae and Aesclepiadaceae families, both having milky latex. The
butterflies thus have a bitter taste from the viewpoint of birds, which show a marked disinterest
in hunting and consuming not only milkweed butterfly species but their mimics from otherwise
edible families! Some information on butterfly host species exists in the classical book on Indian
butterflies by Winter Blyth and some more vital bits are added by Kunte of late. Lastly, one

21

cannot overlook the information packed volume by Stebbins on Indian forest insects. It is
however confined primarily to insect pests of the timber trees but aspects like life history are
attractively.

Seasonality
As a rule, most peninsular Indian trees, including the evergreens shed their leaves during
spring i.e. January February. Many deciduous trees become fully bare while the evergreens
retain much of the leaves. This is followed by the flowering bloom during March April. Some
deciduous trees are in full bloom when completely devoid of leaves such as the `flame of the
forest (Butea monosperma) and the Amaltas/ Bahava (Cassia fistula). These are no doubt
amongst the most beautiful trees of the land. Leaf shedding is not markedly higher in the
ever-wet tropical forests of south-east Asia termed rainforests. However, the peak litterfall
observed in Indian evergreen forests such as in the Western Ghats during these months could
only be attributed to a longer dry spell, lasting 3 to 6 months, resulting in marked soil moisture
deficit. End of summer marks the new flushes of leaves, often with reddish tinge. The leaf
flushing before the monsoon and moisture deficit saturation provides the opportunity for optimal
leaf growth before the insect load increases during the monsoon. This is accompanied by
development and even maturity of fruits, allowing seed dispersal just before the rains begin. This
is particularly true of species having a very short seed viability of a week or two. A classical
example is the famous timber tree of northern India, the sal (Shorea robusta), which is confined
to regions with certainty of arrival of rains within a fortnight of seeding time of the species,
during mid June.
Interestingly, the distribution of the timber tree of southern India, the teak (Tectona
grandis) is also determined by climatic seasonality. This species flowers during the rainy season
i.e. August September. The French Institute hypothesises that the species was common in the
drier areas like Deccan but uncommon in the adjoining Western Ghats where the heavy rainfall
might wash away the flowering. Much of the Teak trees in the Ghats are indeed planted, since
British times. Trees like Teak have seeds with a hard coat which must be exposed to rain and sun
over long period to enable the embryo to break open the weakened seed coat. Thus, such seeds
usually fall well before the rains entailing wait for a few months or even an year to germinate.

22

Human Significance
Trees yield several useful products such as timber, edible fruits, fodder for cattle, manure
from leaves and branchlets, medicines from roots, bark, flower and fruits etc. Though number of
such uses have been recorded in the CSIR book as also in the book by Talbot, it remains to be
seen whether many of these uses actually persist in rural life today. There are however fairly
recent examples of trees like Hardwickia binata having provided fodder to scores of hungry
cattle during famines, when grass availability had dropped drastically.

Population
Population assessment of most tree species has never been attempted scientifically and
remains a task immensely difficult in the field. Nevertheless, based on the first hand experience
of a few quantitative sampling programmes in the Western Ghats and Central India, following
categories have been evolved to describe the density levels of tree species per ha
Abundant: 10 100
Common: 1 10
Frequent: 1
Occasional/ infrequent: 0.1 1
Rare: 0.01 0.1

The estimates of a given population i.e. isolated group of trees can be derived by
multiplying these density levels with the area of the population. Thus, abundant species will have
a population of 100 to 1000 trees while rare species barely one tree in an area of 10 ha. However,
it is assumed that the densities refer to homogeneous population and not to irregular or clumped
distribution of trees.

Conservation
This section briefs about the population decline or threats and suggested measures for
restoration, besides habitat preservation, if any. It begins by a note on regeneration frequency
employing terms like the population density levels. The numbers involved however are several
times the tree density values, given the small size of the saplings compared to trees. The lack or

23

rarity of regeneration is no immediate signal of future population decline as different species

may exhibit different regeneration strategies including small tree to sapling ratio.

Some species exhibit r-life history strategy. Small sized and/ or pioneer trees, including
Bamboo often show this strategy involving explosive and even episodic regeneration. These
produce numerous offsprings especially under favourable conditions like the canopy gaps
preferred by the pioneer species. The sapling mortality may be high and the population may
eventually decline as the individuals grow larger, as postulated by the self-thinning law of
plantations. Some examples may include the commonest of the forest trees like Garcinia, a shade
loving tree and Macaranga peltata, a pioneer in the evergreen forests. Yet others may follow
contrary life history pattern known as k-strategy. These regenerate very scantily but juvenile
morality is very low. Some light demanding species germinate in the shade and wait for years till
a canopy gap appears overhead. Upon this, the saplings grow very speedily. Their population
dynamism is best explained not by law self thinning densities but by `wait and watch' model.
Some examples include the emergents like Mango or Silk cotton trees.

The regeneration may mostly occur from seeds but a few species also multiply from root
suckers, such as the famous sal tree. The saplings and trees grown vegetatively may be
genetically clones of i.e. nearly identical to the mother trees. Population of such coppice trees is
thus genetically inferior to sexually reproduced trees. This could have disastrous consequences.
Most of the Sal forests from central India have been the result of coppice growth encouraged due
to operational ease by the forest department over years, especially in areas heavily felled for
timber. But these dense, lush green stands of such coppice forest resemble monoculture that too
genetically homogeneous. So a particular strain of pest like woodborer easily sweeps through the
entire crop killing the whole stretch of trees.

This is evident in periodic attacks of Sal borer beetles in Madhya Pradesh especially
around Mandla district once in every two or three decades, which are ensured by emphasis on
coppice regeneration. The Sal seeds are collected from the forest floor to yield the chocolate fat.
Thus low soil seed store favours coppice regeneration over seed germination. On the contrary,
the less harvested, more naturally, sexually regenerating forests of Kanha National Park in the

24

same district show much less intensity of the insect attacks. The clear message is that the
vegetative propagation including the high tech tissue culture could be an efficient, easy technique
but does not guarantee diversity and ong term conservation. Habitat preservation approach
ensuring natural reproduction has no match.

Besides such fluctuations, there occur marked population decline or incline in a few
species, primarily due to direct human influence. The trees of Xylia xylocarpa for instance, were
suddenly felled in very large numbers at the turn of the century for railway sleepers. At the same
time enormous plantations of Teak were raised throughout India, including in the Western Ghats
where the species was not common. Much of the plantations of Leucena in India suddenly
succumbed pest during the last decade, when a the pest from its home, southeast Asia invaded
India a few years after the tree was introduced. A study of such population changes is an
important consideration affecting conservation decisions besides regeneration strategies.

Adaptations
Evolution is an ongoing process, having lead to such diversity of life. Evolution and
adaptations are known to be quicker in organisms with shorter life span such as insects that
constantly evolve to predate on host plants. The plants also evolve to minimize the insect
damage, by adding chemicals of various kind to their armour, though the rate of adaptation is
slow. In fact, it is believed that evolution of much of the plant diversity in the tropics can be
attributed to heavy insect load and diversity as compared to the temperate regions. However, all
adaptations are not necessarily due to conflict, some are geared to promote cooperation such as
in the plant-pollinator relationship. Thus, some trees may produce flowers with special shapes,
offering a comfortable seat to the bees. Yet others like Humboldia species exhibit hollow
channels running all along the stem, inhabited by specific ants. The aggressive ants protect the
tree from other insects while ants are rewarded with shelter and honey from extrafloral nectar
glands, possibly an adaptation. Most interesting is the case of evolution of fig trees to attract
pollinator wasps, as described by Ganeshaiah et al.

The trees adopt not just for animal interactions but also in response to environmental
constraints or opportunities. Most of the tall, emergent tree species of forest canopy have

25

developed huge buttresses at the base to avoid wind-throws. Trees from Elaeocarpaceae and
Myristicaceae family often posses adventitious i.e. stilt roots that anchor the tree base to the soil.
Some like Lophopetalum wightianum have roots that run horizontally just beneath the soil
surface and form a dense mesh several meters wide. These are adaptations for loose, moist soils,
the preferred habitat. Some adaptations may be indicators of evolutionary changes. Carallia
brachiata, a tree from the family Rhizophoraceae occasionally shows stilt roots emerging from
beneath the lower branches. This is the one of the two tree species found inland while the rest of
the species from the family inhabit coastal mangroves. The current habitat of Carallia, the
evergreen forests away from tidal zone, does not necessitate stilt roots for anchoring of trees. But
the rudimentary feature probably suggests the original habitat of the species the swampy,
marshy soils, even coastal.

Projects
The bane of natural history in India is perhaps excessive emphasis or rather, restriction of
biology education within the four walls, primarily laboratories full of dead specimens. If the
students should become more observant, analytical and active, learning in the live laboratory of
nature outside the four walls is a must. To encourage such curiosity, some understanding,
unmatched satisfaction from `do it yourself approach; several interesting field experiments are
suggested regarding some species and some general experiments for community of species.
These projects could advance understanding of not just the habitat preference but also
evolutionary adaptations, ethnobotany, species interactions etc.

The projects may be undertaken by anybody interested, not necessarily a formal school or
college student. Unfortunately there is no network today to share the results and suggest
innovations, modifications etc. However, such platforms will become gradually available. To
begin with, journal Resonance of the Indian Academy of Sciences might publish deserving
observations and thoughts under its Lifescape series. Even if few people begin experimenting
along these lines, days may not be far away when tree-watcher's clubs dot the country, like sports
or youth or bird-watcher's clubs at present

26

Provided below are some ideas about such general projects at a general level. Some of
these are specifically suggested in the discussion of individual species, but the similarity in
behaviour of several species along number of dimensions makes it difficult to suggest species
specific projects such as the study of Sal wood borer insect. Another difficulty in suggesting such
species specific projects is lack of adequate information on animal interaction and other
ecological aspects of most species. For, much of the information gathered during the British
regime pertained to timber properties of pests harmful to timber. Later, hardly any ecological and
otherwise interesting information was generated, except some ethnobotanical research, again due
to its applied value. The projects can be categories as below:

Niche, guild occupancy:- Attributes such as pollination and dispersal mechanisms, stress
resistance of pioneer and climax species can be compared. Also could be compared species
dominating different vegetation types like scrub and forest. For instance, the same species is
often known to have thicker bark than the scrub or savanna vegetation than forests where the
environmental stress like fire is lower, unlike savanna, as studied by Hegde et al, an M.Sc.
student project.

Seasonality impacts:- Sal distribution is supposed to be restricted to areas where rainfall arrival
dates do not exceed 10 days of the fruit fall due to low seed viability. Students from these areas
can actually keep track of annual rainfall and fruit fall dates. Besides, they may also maintain a
regeneration index to see if the regeneration indeed drops in years with late monsoon.

Phenology:- Besides regular records of flowering, fruting periods, special phenomenan like
masting i.e.above average production of flowers and fruits after a lapse of few years, often
observed in case of Dipterocarpaceae members can be monitored alongwith rainfall records.
Mango farmers also know this process and their wisdom can also be gathered. Phenology
monitoring every month could help in speculating the fate of Fig trees that ostensibly depend on
pollinator wasps which in turn cannot live outside the floral cup of specific fig. Thus if no fig
trees of a species are in flowering during any given season, the wasps have to either perish or
migrate in nearby landscape, not more than a few kilometers away in search of flowering trees. If
they migrate, trees do not get pollinated and fail to produce seeds, hampering regeneration next

27

year. If they perish, trees cannot produce seeds unless wasps from neighbouring landscapes
invade and pollinate them. For more details, see article by Utkarsh and Almeida.

Forest dynamics:- Assessing mortality and regeneration rates of various tree species in nearby
areas, especially from the periodic records of the forest department on preservation plots, is an
interesting exercise, also of applied value in forestry. It is important to test if the pioneers have
higher regeneration, growth and mortality than the climax species, as may be expected. The
regeneration and mortality rates are known to be generally lower in stress affected sites like
fire-prone forests, which could be locally verified.

Tree growth:- Rates of growth of individual trees and species, in relation to age and habitat
conditions, based on data as above. It could be tested if pioneer species have higher growth rates
than the climax species as generally believed.

Harvest impact:- Regeneration or coppicing vigour for trees of species harvested for fruits or
fruiting branches, in harvested and unharvested areas or trees. Studies on Gooseberry
(Phyllanthus emblica) trees by Ganeshaiah et al. are illustrative. Similar studies can now target
Garcinia species from the Western Ghats or Mahua and Sal trees from central India, where these
species critically contribute to rural income.

Density regulation:- Regeneration or size frequencies at increasing distance from large/r/st trees
of focal species to see effect of mother tree on saplings. Pioneers species like Silk cotton with
long distance dispersal ability are expected show scattered regeneration, not necessarily clumped
near the mother tree. Opposite could be the case of climax species like Garcinia that have heavy
fruits and seeds, falling and regenerating near the mother tree, unless dispersed widely by
animals.

Competition:- Effect of invasion of weeds like Lantana or Eupatorium on density/ protection/

shadowing of regeneration of other species in areas with invasion of different size/ age. It would
be important to observe if such exotic species may be eventually edged out by the local species
in the absence of human influence as in the protected areas. The weeds may also outsmart local

28

species as is generally observed in areas with high human influence like in the roadside
vegetation where dispersal agents like cattle frequent. Comparison of pollination and dispersal
characters as well as predatory pressure on weeds and local species proves illuminating.
Sibling rivalry:- Size of seeds in relation to number per fruits across species or growth and
mortality of saplings over two three years in small plots with ample regeneration of focal species
raises appealing questions and unique opportunities.

Reproductive allocation:- Relation of average leaf size to individual's age/ fruiting vigour.
Younger plants like saplings generally have higher average leaf size than the older trees of the
same species. Perhaps, this allows capturing more sunlight at a young age through limited leaves
available. On the contrary, older plants invest more in flowers and fruits to ensure the future
generation rather than maximising their own profits like tapping more sunlight.

Symbiosis:- Keeping records of identity, frequency and activities of birds and mammals visiting
focal species could not be a means to gain pride in Birdwatcher's clubs but also have great
applied value to reforestation. Detection of nature and intensity of soil mycorrhiza near and away
from trees especially from Dipterocarpaceae family is an interesting research line, much pursued
in South East Asia where such forests abound.

Commensialism:- Choice of host trees for bee combs, relative importance of floral resource
proximity or barriers like tree height, canopy isolation etc. Some trees like Silk cotton and
Tetrameles nudiflora that typically shelter colonies of such beehives could constitute interesting
living laboratories provided care is taken to avoid bee attack.

Prey-predator:- Equally useful is the study of tree mortality and predator population intensity in
case of pairs like the Sal and its wood-borer and other case described in Stebbin's book. Another
interesting feature is predation of the predator such as the parasitic wasps or beetles feeding on
wood borer of Sal. At what density of the wood borer or under what environmental conditions
does the population of parasites springs up? When does it fall, with reduced host densities?

29

Parasitism:-

Incidence of parasites like Loranthus or Viscum or epiphytes Fig trees, host

choice, relation to species, age/ size, soil, effects on fruiting vigour etc. Does parasite infestation
increase with logging or cutting of branches, exposing the inner tissues and providing
colonisation site for the parasite? Does fig epiphyte density decline with disturbance as observed
in some tropical forests or the reverse happens in India, as observed in rural and urban areas
abounding in epiphytic figs in contrast to forests?

Technical Terms
Technical jargon has been avoided to the extent possible without compromising adequate
description of the facts. The technical terms are used only when utmost necessary, and explained
in the glossary section.

Contributions
The book of course is the result of efforts a large team. However, due to the space
shortage; each taxonomic account acknowledges only a few lead names involved in writing,
reviewing, illustrating etc.

30

BIBLIOGRAPHY
(being updated and completed)

Ali Saalim. 1942. The book of Indian Birds. Oxford.

Anon. 1975. Common Indian Trees. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. New Delhi.

Balsubramaniam et al. 1986. Field key to the indigenous trees of Kerala. Kerala Forest Research
Intitute. Peechi.

Bhandari. 1970. The Flora of Rajasthan Desert.

Blatter. E. 1950. Beautiful Trees, Shrubs, and Climbers of India. Oxford.

Bole. P. R. and Y. Vaghani. 1986. Fieldguide to common trees of India. Oxford.

Brandis. D. 1978. Indian trees. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh. Dehradun.

Chandran, M. D. S. 1996. Ecological history of the Western Ghats. Current Science. Spl. Issue
on biodiversity.

Cooke. T. 1975 (repr.). Flora of Bombay (3 vols.) Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh. Dehradun.

Dixit S. P. 1997. Scientific names of plants explained. Disha Prakashan. Nasik.

Ganeshiah K. et. al.. Evolution of Ficus.

Hegde et al. 1999. Bark thickness of tropical trees: A case study from the Western Ghats.

Hooker J. D. 1985 (repr.) A sketch of Indian Flora. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh.

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Kunte K. 2000. Fieldguide to common Indian butterflies. Indian Academy of Sciences.

Bangalore.

Lawrence. H. M. 1957. Taxonomy of flowering plants. Oxford.

Mani. M. 1974. Ecology and Biogeography in India. W. Junk The Hague.

Mathew. K. M. 1992. Flora of Tamilnadu Carnatic (4 vols.) Rapinat Herbarium. Tiruchirapalli.

McCann. C. 1950. Common Indian Trees. Bombay Natural History Society. Mumbai.

Nayar. M. P. 1985. The meaning of Indian Flowering Plants. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh.
Dehradun.

Pascal. J. P. 1988. Vegetative key to trees and lianas of the wet evergreen forests of Western
Ghats. French Institute. Pondicherry.

Puri et. al. 1988. The wet evergreen forests of Western Ghats. French Institute. Pondicherry.

Randhawa 1985. Beautiful Indian Trees.

Rheede Van. 1986 (repr.). Hortus Malabaricus. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh. Dehradun.

Sahani. K. C. 1999. A book of Indian trees. Bombay Natural History Society. Mumbai

Saldanha. C. J. (unpubl.) Endemic flowering plants of Western Ghats. Centre for Taxonomic
Studies, Bangalore.

Santapau H. 1970. Genera of Flowering plants of India.

Santapau H. 1970. Common Indian Trees. National Book Trust. New Delhi

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Stebbins. 1980 (repr.). Forest flora of Indian forest insects. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh.
Dehradun

Talbot W. A. 1975 (repr.). Forest flora of Bombay Presidency. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal
Singh. Dehradun

Utkarsh G. and Almeida, M. R. 1999. Genus Ficus. Resonance.

Whitemore, T. C. 1975. A field key to identification of Malayan tree flora.

Winterblyth M. A. 1986. (repr.) A book of Indian Butterfly. Today and Tommorrow Printers and
Publishers. Delhi.

33

LIST OF FIGURES
1. Phytogeographic regions of India
2. Side view of various vegetation types
3. Tree, shrub and herb profile
4. Basal shoots
5. Litter dynamics- spread and depth
6. Leaf glands- surface, margin, petiole
7. Taxonomic hierarchy
8. History of introduction of Sandal/ Coconut in India
9. Deciduous, Semievergreen and Evergreen canopy
10. Erect, Semierect and spreading canopy
11. Branching pattern- normal, horizontal, drooping, whorled
12. Buttresses, Stilt roots
13. Trunk- cylindrical, crooked, fluted
14. Bark- lenticelled, lined, pitted, flaky, fissured, crocodile
15. Leaves- simple, compound, subtypes
16. Stipules- scaly, leaflike
17. Leaf arrangement- opposite, subopposite, alternate, clustered, digitate
18. Leaf shapes
19. Leaf tips
20. Leaf bases
21. Leaf margins
22. Nervation patterns
23. Petiole types- sessile, thickened, glandular, channeled, winged, amplexicaule
24. Floral components
25. Fruit Types
26. Global distribution categories

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ANNEXURES
1. Field identification key to the trees covered in the book.
2. Species with very distinguishing identification characters like gregarious, colourful flowering
or peculiar fruiting etc.

File d:\lifescape\ug\treeintro.rtf

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