India is home to approximately 50,000 plant species in the world. Around 6 percent of world species of flowering plants are found in the country. It is one of the 17 mega-diversity regions of the world, and eleventh in respect to the number of endemic vascular plant species. Around 28 percent of flora in India […]
Changing Physiology of Plants could be Boosting River Flooding Worldwide
The tiny pores under the surface of the leaves called stomata are primarily responsible for the intake of carbon dioxide that plants need for photosynthesis. During the daytime, the pores are open to allow the maximum intake of the gas in the presence of sunlight so that plants can produce their food. But what happens […]
How do Plants Tell the Time of Day?
As a kid, I was always curious about a plant in our garden called nine o’clock. My father informed that the unusual name popped from the plant’s habit to bloom like clockwork precision at nine o’clock in the morning. And so with clockwork precision myself, every day I would go out in the garden to […]
Vanishing Medicinal Plants of Kashmir Himalaya
RED ALERT: The practice of using local herbs as medicinal remedies for a variety of health conditions is widely known in India. It is a knowledge that has been acknowledged by the world as India’s Ayurvedic medicine tradition. Even as modern drugs gain popularity, the tradition of using herbs to cure a headache, a cough, […]
Indian Forests Vanishing at 135 Hectares per Day!
There is only once species that will soon be seen in all India’s forests – the human being. In a shocking new revelation from data acquired through Right to Information (RTI) from the Environment Ministry, India’s forests are being turned into concrete jungles with 135 hectares (almost 333 acres) of forest land being diverted every […]
By 2080 Climate Change might Eat Away Most Plants and Animals
It is the year 2080 and it is not the world you would like to live in. Planet Earth is a lot hotter and a lot less greener with more than half of common plants and one third of the animals that we easily see today, becoming rare or extinct. This is the alarming prediction […]
Ailing Sundarbans losing Beauty and Diversity
The mangrove belts of Sundarbans expand from India till Bangladesh. Here, the border between land and water hazes away. It is a place where the ocean and rivers embrace each other and give aquatic life forms a perfect spot to thrive and create young ones. Terrestrial forms like the Royal Bengal Tiger have ample area to lead their solitary life, hunt, hide and stay away from the curious and sometimes irritating two legged humans. But human are rapidly encroaching this ideal habitat. Coasts are receding, mangroves are vanishing. So much so that experts say, the Sundarbans forests may soon become a thing of the past.