GREEN THUMBS
Compiled by researchers from the Auroville Botanical Gardens, Trees of South India catalogues the remarkable flora of the Eastern Ghats
It’s only April, and it has already been a bad year for tree-lovers, especially with the news that 6,000 trees were felled in the Jim Corbett National Park to facilitate eco-tourism, that greatest of all environmental fictions. But a dot of light has emerged— a new field guide titled Trees of South India: Native Trees and Shrubs of the South Indian Plains and Hillocks, written and compiled by researchers from the Auroville Botanical Gardens. The heavy subtitle hints at the thorough legwork that went into this book, and indeed all the work that went into the reforestation of the region in which Auroville is located. Anyone who has visited Pondicherry in the 1970s will recall vistas of near-dead scrubland that seemed irremediable. Now, it is a multi-layered forest that offers hope that we can rejuvenate our natural wealth. Pradip Krishen’s foreword talks of the value of such field guides in fighting institutions that are expected to preserve our environment but are instead hand in glove with commercial interests.
Paul Blanchflower, in an author’s note, describes his own discovery of the forestry movement in and around Auroville. The introduction describes in depth the eastern mass of the southern Indian peninsula, encompassing the Coromandel Coast, the Eastern Ghats and the lower slopes of the Western Ghats. It is for the most part a dry tropical environment with sparse rainfall and large rain shadows. To restore green cover in such an environment is a challenge, since each tree and shrub must be protected much longer than in a wetter climate. But the plant materials with which people would embark on such a project are robust and more widely available than we might fear. With all the industrial and urban activity of the region, there are pockets in which native vegetation thrives—in sacred groves, hill shrines, older national parks, urban parks and the campuses of universities and government institutions. The 200 pages on tree and shrub species are richly illustrated, with sharp, well-lit colour photographs of leaf, flower, seed, bark and the whole tree, so that the reader can distinguish even similarlooking species. The text description includes the usual habitat of the tree, its uses and the best way to propagate it. Common names in English, Tamil and Hindi are given in addition to the binomial, and an index attached. As Blanchflower writes in the author’s note, there are digitised resources that document the range of flora and fauna in this region. Still, whether you’re re-greening a bit of land or exploring the trees around you, a book in hand inspires in its own way.