Fern Flora of Madan Kamdev Hill Region (Kamrup District of Assam, India)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Fern Flora of Madan Kamdev Hill region of Kamrup district of Assam comprises of 450 sqkm of an area of which situ ated in the north bank of the river Brahmaputra in Kamrup district of Assam. Geographically it is located in between Latitude 26°10'-26°20' N and Longitude: 91940'-91950 E. It is bounded by Bornodi River in the east, North Guwahati and mighty river Brahmaputra in the southern boundary. The northern and western boundary is bounded by NH-52 & NH-31 and NF Railway line respectively. The present work was undertaken during 2012-2015 which deals with 72 species of ferns and fern-allies under 38 genera and 24 families. The families were arranged as per the system of Christenhusz et al., (2011) classification with slight modification and followed for the enumeration of species.

The collected specimens were prepared with standard herbarium and finally identified in the Regional Herbarium Centre of BSI, the Kanjilal Herbarium (ASSAM), Shillong. The Book will be helpful to the students and scholars of Botany and plant sciences.

Dr. Paresh Ch. Kalita, M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Gauhati University with specialization in Angiosperm Taxonomy. He is presently working as Associate Professor in the Department of Botany, Pub Kamrup College, Baihata Chariall under Guahati University, Guwahati, Assam, India. Dr Kalita has completed 3 Minor Research Projects in different fields of Botany. He nomenclatured two Angiospermic plants: Glochidion manda katensis Kalita & Borthakur and Glochidion madankamdevi Borthakur & Kalita, during his research. He published more than 15 research papers in National and International reputed Journals and presented more than 10 research papers in different National and International seminars and conferences.

Dipak Konwar is a senior Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany, Pub Kamrup College, Baihata Chariali, Kamrup, Assam (India). He did his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Gauhati University with specialization in Microbiology. He has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience. He has completed one Major Research Project funded by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India and one minor research project funded by UGC. He is an environmental education worker and published environ ment related books like "Dhemalir Solere Parivesh Siksha", "Ami Kun Deshe", Jol Bayu Pari borton" etc.

The Fern Flora of Madan Kamdev Hill region of Kamrup district of Assam holds an importance in assessing the natural resources and their scope of utilization which is a challenging aspect of plant diversity. Survey, taxonomic treatment and documentation of fern species from different localities of Madan Kamdev hill region of Assam are very important at this juncture. Day by day the natural resources have been facing different serious threats for survival in their natural habitat. Already huge number of identified and unknown species has been extinct forever from our biodiversity. The present survey and documentation of fern flora of Madan Kamdev hill region of Assam will be an asset for future generation and plant lovers of present generation. Madan Kamdev hill region is famous for its Archaeological heritage and known as "Khajuraho" of North Eastern India. The region consists of foot hills, hills, wetlands, streams, attractive natural beauty and full of flora and fauna and attraction for Educationists, Researchers, Scientists, Environmentalists and Tourists a culture of our country as well as Foreigners. Govt. of Assam has established a "Bioresource Centre" through the Assam Science Technology and Environment Council (ASTEC, 1995)'. The present work was actually initiated in 2012 as a part of a Minor Research project sponsored by UGC and completed by the first author in 2014. The work was continued for compilation of a Fern flora of this biodiversity centre of Assam. A regular survey to different coridors in different seasons upto March, 2015 was carried out in the region and collected the fern specimens. The collected specimens were prepared with standard herbarium and finaly identified in the Regional Herbarium Centre of BSI, the Kanjilal Herbarium (ASSAM), Shillong. The present work deals with 72 species of ferns and fern-allies under 38 genera and 24 families. The families were arranged as per the system of Christenhusz et al., (2011) classification and slight modification was followed for the enumeration of species. A brief description, habit, habitat, present status, sporulation, uses, distribution and as possible as sketches of the specimens are provided in this book. For almost each and every species coloured photography has been given which were taken in the field. Updated nomenclature is also appended wherever necessary. In this flora is also included the standard field and herbarium techniques for all types of plants. We hope, the book will provide more information about regional fern flora for further research and scientific study.

We would like to express our sincer thanks and gratefulness to the persons of different localities of the area for their help during the study. Our sincere thanks to staff of Bioresource centre, Madan Kamdev (ASTEC). We are thankful to our College authority and colleagues for their support. We are also thankful to the authorities of BSI, Eastern Circule, the Kanjilal Herbarium (ASSAM), Shillong for providing Herbarium and Library fecilities. Authors are thankful to M/S EBH Publishers (India), Panbazar, Guwahati for all the conviniant works to complete the book nicely.

The Pteridophytes are non-flowering, seedless vascular and spore bearing plants including ferns and fern-allies. They grow luxuriantly in moist tropical and temperate forest and their occurrence in different eco-geographical region; threatened regions from sea level to highest mountains are of much interest (Dixit, 2000). The global diversity of pteridophytes is yet not very clear, however, the estimated number of species of world pteridophytes is in between 9000-15000 (Smith et al., 2008; Mabberley, 1997; Roos, 1996 and Haufler, 1996). The world flora contains approximately 12,000 species of Pteridophytes of which more than 1200 species of ferns and fern allies have reported from India (Dixit, 1984 and Chandra, 2000). Moreover, it is true that about 10% of world Pteridophytes occur in the Indian landmass. Many foreign scientists have done lot of work on the pteridophytes of India. The work on Indian pteridophytes was first initiated by Roxburgh in 1814. Later Beddome, 1883& 1892; Clarke, 1880 and Hope, 1903a,b, 1904 worked upto the end of 19th century. After partition of the then British India several scientists made remarkable contributions to Indian pteridology (Bir, 1976a,b, 1977a,b, 1979, 1983; Kachroo, 1953& 1975; Panigrahi, 1960& 1968; Panigrahi and Choudhury 1961& 1962; Panigrahi and Patnaik, 1961a,b; Handique and Konger, 1986; Barua et al., 1989; Bir et al., 1989; Kachroo et al., 1989 and Vasudev et al., 1990). Many Indian Scientists (like S.S. Bir, B.K. Nayar, S.P. Khullar, P.N. Mehra, K.K. Dhir and V.S. Manickan et al.) have done significant work on the taxonomy and nomenclature of pteridophytes in India.

**Contents and Sample Pages**