Date:07/09/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/09/07/stories/2004090701461700.htm

Back Data on tropical flora `insufficient'

Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram , Sept. 6

INSUFFICIENT data on the existing plant wealth and flora has led to many misleading conclusions on floras of tropical countries, including India.

This has also created avoidable confusion in every sphere of our economic as well as academic activities, according to Dr K. S. Manilal, Director, Centre for Research in Indigenous Knowledge, Science and Culture, based in Kozhikode, Kerala.

The floras of tropical countries have been written by botanists from temperate countries, particularly of Europe and North America.

Many of these were written in the colonial era, says Dr Manilal in a paper on `Taxonomy teaching and training in Indian Universities and Colleges' brought out as part of a compendium on the subject by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (STEC).

A thorough investigation of Indian flora has become an urgent necessity not only because of the economic and ecological importance of biodiversity but also the accelerated genetic erosion occurring as a consequence of destruction of the forests and other habitats.

Essentially, biodiversity is the "study of systematics in a conservation conscious context" as is evident from its extreme relevance in the Biological Patent Laws and Intellectual Property Rights.

"India boasts one of the largest repository of scientific manpower but we in Kerala are still largely dependent on "Flora of British India" written by Hooker in 1881 and "Flora of the Presidency of Madras" by Gamble in 1935 for identifying plants of the State", Dr Manilal adds.

The usefulness of the aforesaid texts is limited since occurrence of many new species has been reported in the region since their publication.

A compilation of the scattered information already published shows that 625 taxa belonging to 103 families of flowering plants have been recorded in Kerala since the publication of Gamble.

Of these, 240 are entirely new to the world flora, with six new genera, 190 new species, three new sub-species and 41 new varieties. This is despite, and not because of any thorough floristic exploration of the region.

"However, for want of any other more comprehensive book, we are invariably obliged to still refer to old floras", Dr Manilal says in the compendium of papers edited by Dr K. R. S. Krishnan, Director, STEC, and Dr R. Prakashkumar, Principal Scientific Officer to Government of Kerala.

Compilation of the flora and its constant updating in a large and floristically rich country such as India is not an easy job. This can be attempted only with the active cooperation and sustained participation of a large number of taxonomists located in different parts of the country. Tropical forests are the cradles of evolution and centres of biodiversity.

Since such forests lie in underdeveloped countries, no thorough studies have been conducted there. In Europe and North America though, work on preparing floristic inventory has been completed long back.

In the Netherlands, for instance, the total number of flowering plants is much less than 2000 and hardly any new species have been reported in the past 20 years.

In India, the total number of species documented by the "Flora of British India" is about 17,000; and in the past 20 years, a few hundred new species have been reported additionally.

"During this period, our own small group of taxonomists in Kozhikode University alone has stumbled on over 110 new species of flowering plants from different regions in the State, apart from reporting more to the India flora", says Dr Manilal.