Nature provided us many gifts which are priceless and one of them is natural vegetation. Plants are the form of living beings which grows naturally without any external help; this is the beauty of nature which is called natural vegetation.
The natural vegetation can be forests or farmlands. In the variation of altitude and climate they grow naturally, based on these two parameters they are classified in many types. Soil is also a very important factor in the growth of forests.
Natural vegetation is dependent on the rainfall quantity which occurs differently in different regions. As a result every part of country has different type of forests or vegetation area.
The vegetation in India broadly can be classified on the basis of climate and altitude in five types as follows-
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Tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen forests
These kinds of forests can be found in warm and humid locations in India, areas which have more than 200cm rainfall annually and annual temperature more than 22° c.
These are found in hilly slopes of north east states, Western Ghats, Andaman and Nicobar islands. The season for flowering, shedding is not regular or unfixed season for all fruiting.
They are evergreen, well stratified and very dense. Very tall tress of height 60 meter or more are found in tropical evergreen forests. And main species are mahogany, rosewood, bamboos, sandal wood and ebony etc. The range of these trees has dense growth
Forests which have mixture of deciduous and evergreen varieties are found in the areas where less rain fall occurs. Semi evergreen forests consist of Hollock, kail, chestnut, oak, cedar as main species.
Tropical deciduous forests
These are most widely spread in all types of forests in India. These are also called Monsoon forests. These grow in the regions where rainfall occurs between 70 cm and 200 cm. valuable timbers are supplied by these kinds of forests.
Further on basis of quantity of rainfall Tropical deciduous forests are divided in two types- 1.) Tropical dry deciduous
Tropical dry deciduous
Where rainfall of range 70-100 cm occurs these are found there. Found in plains of Bihar and U.P., peninsula. In dry season the trees of these forests shed their leaves fully and look like grassland. Main species are Tendu, Axle wood, bel, palas etc.
Tropical moist deciduous
These kinds of forests grow in areas where rainfall of range 100-200 cm occurs. Found in lower part of Himalaya and Odisha, on shores of Western Ghats. Main species are kusum, amla, teak, mahua, sisham etc.
Tropical thorn forests
Area having rainfall less than 50 cm is found to be rich of tropical thorn forests. Variety of shrubs and grasses grows in these forests.
Semi dry and dry areas of Haryana, Gujarat, M.P., U.P, Rajasthan, and Punjab are the regions where they can be found. The trees of these forests remain leafless during whole year. A special type of grass called Tussocky grows up to 2 meter in length in these forests.
Mountain forests
These type of forests found in hilly areas of India as the name implies. These forests are classified in two types as Northern montane and southern montane forests.
Northern montane forests
Grow in Himalayan region. The type changes on the altitude basis as Tropical to Tundra.
Wet temperature type of forests is found in height range 1000-2000 m. At this height broad leaf trees like oak are commonly found.
Deodar and pine trees are found in some areas at height of 1500-1750 m. Walnut and chinar trees in the Kashmiri Himalaya are found.
At altitude range of 2200-3000 m spruce and blue pine appears.
At height of 3000-4000 m pines, junipers, rhodendrones and silver firs are found. At high altitude Lichens and mosses grow.
Southern montane forests
In south India these are in three main regions- Nilgiri hills, Hills of Western Ghats and vindhyas. Southern hills are closer to tropics with average height of 1500 m, due to these reasons show two vegetation types- temperature in higher regions at sub-tropical in lower regions.
Sholas is the name given to the temperature forests of Annamalai, Nilgiri hills. Laurel, Magnolia and wattle are main species.
Swamp and Littoral forests
Also known as wetland forests. These are in rich variety in India. Mangrove forests grow along sea coast in salty sand, estuaries and tidal creeks.
Mangrove forests are home to a variety of birds. Some salt tolerant species of plants are also present. In India Mangroves are found in Sundarbans, Andman and Nicobar Island, Mahanadi and Godavari River deltas.
Certain rules and regulations should be strictly maintained in order to minimize the environmental impact over the vegetation area.
This regulation plays an important role in maintaining the balance between ecological stability and progress. Trees and local vegetation cannot be removed simply for the expansion of real state of agricultural exploitation
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