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Flowering plants of the Western Ghats, India

2015; Wiley; Volume: 53; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jse.12163

1674-4918

Laurence J. Dorr,

Flowering Plant Growth and Cultivation

Nayar TS, Rasiya Beegam A, Sibi M. 2014. Flowering plants of the Western Ghats, India, Volume 1 Dicots, pp. i–x, 1–933, erratum (reverse p. 933); Volume 2 Monocots, pp. i–v, 935–1683. Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Palode, Thiruvananthapuram 695 562, Kerala, India. Two-volume set: ISBN 9788192009896 (hard bound). Price Rs 3500; US $200. — Volume 1 (ISBN 9788192009827): Contents (both volumes), foreword (Swaminathan MS); preface (authors); introduction, including methodology, categories of data, recorded species (i.e., statistics), general references, and users' key (i.e., explanation of format); and dicotyledons. Volume 2 (ISBN 9788192009834): Contents (both volumes); monocotyledons; addenda, including additions and species of doubtful occurrence; references (both volumes); scientific names (both volumes); and local names (both volumes). In Hindi the word ghat signifies a wide series of steps leading down to a river, especially one used for bathing. The ghats or steps most familiar to non-Indians are those on the Ganges that are used to descend to this sacred river for bathing, religious rituals, and cremations. The same word is used to describe a pass or steps through the mountains and by the early 16th century ghat had also come to signify the mountain ranges themselves, especially the two main ranges paralleling the eastern and western coasts of India. The western mountain ranges or Western Ghats are of special interest to botanists because they are very rich floristically. The present volumes serve as a checklist of the angiosperm flora of this region, a 1600 km long series of mountain ranges closely paralleling the west coast of India and extending from near Surat in the north to the Nilgiris in the south. The Western Ghats range in elevation from a modest 300 to 2695 m. Their steep west-facing slopes receive a great deal of rainfall during the monsoon season from June through September and have tropical moist evergreen forests. Their eastern slopes lie in a rain shadow and have dry deciduous forests. The area treated by the floristic checklist is 164 280 km2 and includes parts of six states and 53 districts. Statistics compiled by the authors for the number of taxa treated in the two volumes are simple: 210 families, 1480 genera, and 7402 species (7995 taxa). Included in these figures are 376 exotic species that are naturalized and an additional 1438 that are cultivated; the number of indigenous species is thus reduced to 5588. There is no further statistical analysis by taxon, forest type, or political boundary. This checklist of the flowering plants of the Western Ghats is organized so that each entry begins with an accepted name followed by synonyms, habit, nativity (i.e., provenance), distribution by political region within the Western Ghats, phenology, conservation status, economic importance, and local names. Most of these categories are tied to reference numbers that correspond to references given at the end of volume two. The authors freely acknowledge their debt to TS Nayar et al., Flowering plants of Kerala: A handbook (2006). Indeed, not only did all three of the compilers of the present volumes contribute to this earlier volume but also the format and style are essentially the same. Without making a line-by-line comparison I would venture that most of the information in the Kerala handbook is folded verbatim into the checklist of the Western Ghats. Checklists often are organized by political boundaries and it is encouraging to see one based on a biogeographic region of global importance. As noted by the authors, the Western Ghats are an UNESCO World Heritage Site and a “biodiversity hotspot for conservation purposes” (N Myers et al., Nature 403: 853–858. 2000). Unfortunately, as also noted by the authors the undisturbed vegetation of the Western Ghats is now reduced to about one-third of its original area. There are some shortcomings in this checklist of the angiosperm flora of the Western Ghats. Nothing is stated concerning family concepts. I assume the compilers elected to follow BD Sharma et al., Flora of India (1993–x). It would have been more useful if they had adopted the family classification proposed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (PF Stevens, Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, version 12). The data then could be more readily compared to other checklists and one might even be able to tease out interesting phylogenetic patterns in the flora that are obfuscated by the outdated family classification employed. The statistics regarding species richness could be analyzed in more detail. A nice example of what information can be derived from tallying such data is provided by PM Jørgensen et al., Catálogo de las plantas vasculares de Bolivia (2014). Also as noted above the references cited in the text are coded to numbers with the full references given at the end of the second volume in numeric rather than alphabetical order. This not only makes checking them awkward, especially as all of the dicotyledon references cited in volume one are only given at the end of volume two, but it also insures that the extensive bibliography organized by number has no utility in and of itself. I cannot fault the compilers for missing the occasional combination or synonym, but I am surprised that nomenclatural changes and synonymies proposed by HJ Noltie in The botany of Robert Wight (2005) escaped their attention; Wight, of course, being one of the major botanical figures who explored the Western Ghats. At the very least two names in the checklist should be corrected; Actinodaphne wrightiana (Kuntze) Noltie and Melhania sidoides (Wight & Arn.) Noltie are the correct (i.e., accepted) names for A. malabarica NP Balakr. and M. cannabina Wight ex Masters, respectively. Despite the relatively minor shortcomings noted above this is an impressive and hefty compilation. I know of no other checklist of a large-scale biogeographic region in Asia and there are surprisingly few contemporary checklists of vascular or flowering plants of Asian countries. Exceptions are JR Press, Annotated checklist of the flowering plants of Nepal (2000), LK Senaratna, A check list of the flowering plants of Sri Lanka (2001), WJ Kress et al., A checklist of the trees, shrubs, herbs, and climbers of Myanmar (2003), M Newman et al., A checklist of the vascular plants of Lao PDR (2007), and KY Chong et al., A checklist of the total vascular plant flora of Singapore (2009). None of these country-level checklists, however, provide the detail given in the present volumes. I encourage the authors of the Flowering plants of the Western Ghats to take the necessary steps to maintain, correct, and update their checklist in a more dynamic fashion. I also encourage others in Asia to emulate this effort and focus their efforts on compiling regional checklists that can help us better understand biodiversity, support conservation efforts, and maybe even contribute to a world flora of vascular plants one step at a time. Laurence J. Dorr Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, MRC-166, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20013-7012, USA E-mail: dorrl@si.edu