JABALPUR is a centrally located city, district and division of Madhya Pradesh - the largest state of India. No exhaustive flora of Madhya Pradesh has so far been published. A number of regions of M.P. remained botanically unexplored or underexplored. Oommachan's Flora of Bhopal (1977) was the first regional flora published of a region to this state. There after, a few more regional floras were published. However, Jabalpur, another large and floristically rich region of M.P., which is situated at the heart of India, remained unexplored. The present work bridged this gap. The content of the book "Flora of Jabalpur" is the outcome of regular survey and study for over a decade which include details of 933 species of indigenous, naturalized and cultivated plants belonging to 585 genera and 139 families.
The salient features of the book are: a review of past and present work; Jabalpur and its environs; Forest biodata; general vegetational types; Floristic analysis; Systematic enumeration of species; notes on phenology, ecology, distribution, economic and ethnobotanical importance; common English and vernacular names; upto-date nomenclature including recent name changes and an exhaustive bibliography. Keys have been provided to help identification on the basis of a number of macroscopic characters readily recognisable in the field or in the herbarium. Illustrations of rare plants, new records, endemic species and weeds are given. Classification followed in general is that by Bentham and Hooker. However, new generic, specific and family names have been incorporated as followed by Hutchinson and other modern taxonomists. In short, the Flora of Jabalpur is a valuable reference manual for the taxonomists, forest scientists and researchers and students who are interested in the knowledge and identification of the flowering plants of Jabalpur and its adjacent regions of Madhya Pradesh. |
