- Wet evergreen forest
- Moist evergreen forest
- Dry semi-evergreen forest
- Monsoon forest
- dry deciduous forest
- Semi-arid region - thorn forest
- desert
Vegetation based on Rainfall
| EVERGREEN | MONSOON | ARID | |||||
| >300 WET EVERGREEN | (300-200) MOIST EVERGREEN | (300-200) DRY SEMI EVERGREEN | (200-100) MOIST DECIDUOUS | (150-100) DRY DECIDUOUS | (100-75) SEMI ARID THORN FOREST | <50 DESERT | |
| - - - | |||||||
Table of Contents hide
Other forests of India
Mangrove forest
They are a wet-evergreen type of forest with adaptations to survive in brackish water in the intertidal zone along the coast. There is a mixing of freshwater of rivers and saltwater of seas.
Uses - Protect the costs from coastal erosion, tropical cyclones, and tsunamis.
Features
- Breathing roots pneumatophores
- Recycle nutrients and absorb phosphates, nitrates, and even heavy metals from the waters
- They are Habitats of great biodiversity
- They make up the entire coast of India but over the years have declined significantly
Important mangrove regions of India
- Sundarbans - Sundari trees hardest wood in India used in railways sleepers so greatly deforested for Industrial and commercial use
- Pichavaram in TN
- Bhitarkanika forest - Odisha coast south of Balasore up to Paradip saltwater crocodiles
- GahirMata coast - Olive ridley Turtles breeding ground
- Andaman & Nicobar
- Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat
Mangrove trees
- Sundari trees
- Nepa trees
- Rhizophora
- screw pine
Shola forest
- Unique ecosystems of Nilgiris. Open forest with shrublands and grasslands interspaced with dense trees.
- Some consider the Shola forest as the natural adaptation to climate temperature and rainfall
- others consider the forest as an example for secondary forest due to man forest interaction and years of shifting agriculture.
- It is probably a kind of secondary climax community like the belukars of Malaysia.
- The typical species are subtropical broad-leaved species these forests are found at heights of around 1000 to 1500 meters in the Nilgiris and today are ecologically threatened because of expansion and development of plantation agriculture and human habitations
- Sholas is one of the types of forests in Nilgiris. Nilgiri is a biosphere reserve.
Coniferous Forests
- Adaptations to altitude in India found in in the Himalayas predominantly beyond 1000m
- The coniferous forests are more pronounced in Western-Himalayas where it is cooler
- Birch
- larch
- Deodar
- Juniper
- In the Middle-Himalayas the dryer inferior conifers like Chir are present.
- Chir which is grown in Himachal Kashmir Uttarakhand it is used for turpentine oil and furniture