Page 211 - e-Book

Vegetation diversity in the area

From the surveyed area, a total of 48 floral species and carnivorous plant species like

Utricularia aurea were documented. Of the species of plants, habit diversity was also
observed, in that 33 species were herbs, 1 climbers, 1 ferns, 6 shrubs, and 7 trees (Table1).

Among the aquatic vegetation in the project area the most striking ones, were mangrove
specie such as Avicennia sp., mangrove associates like Clerodendron sp, Clerodendrum

paniculatum, Pandanus sp, Wedelia trilobata etc, hydrophytes like Salvinia molesta,
weedyspp Acalypha indica, Mimosa pudica etc and cultivated species Anacardium

occidentale, Cocos nucifera, Ficus hispida, Mangifera indica. Only 14% of the total number

of species recorded from the area, were tree species. The common tree species recorded were
Anacardium, occidentale, Mangifera sp.

Herbs were dominant in the area with 68.15% of the documented population.

1

The above graph, Fig.2, shows the abundance and frequency of most common herbs of the

area. Paspalum scrobiculatum is a millet members which was used as food crop earlier in
India. Table 1 lists the diversity of plants documented in the area.

201