Plants Catalog: Maharashtra State

Note: The complete credit of the following plants catalog is of ‘Oikos for Ecological Services’ organization in Pune. They have made this list open to all. We are making it available on ‘Vanarambh’ with the sincere intention of reaching this list out to as many people as possible.

Using the first list of ‘afforestation’ in the book ‘लागवड’ will benefit all the biodiversity in our region as a whole. There only endemic plants are listed. But for ‘gardens’, some plants have been added that are cultivated, hybridized, non-invasive or useful. It also contains plants found elsewhere in India. But as they are non-native to Maharashtra, they are mentioned in the list as NN means NON NATIVE. “The use of such plants should be limited to residential areas only. These plants should not be planted in natural areas, in forests. Such instructions are given at the top of each list in this book.” Local = N, Ethnic = NN and Cultivated = C are marked in one column in this list.

Selection of trees. This choice should be made according to the type of forest in your region. There are generally four main types of forests in Maharashtra. In Konkan and East Vidarbha, there are moist deciduous forests, semi-evergreen forests in the Ghats of Sahyadri and dry deciduous and thorny shrubs in Central Maharashtra. These four types appear to be formed mainly due to rainfall density. It has many plants in common, some are characteristic. To make the selection easier, Oikos has divided Maharashtra into four sections and accordingly listed the trees at the end of the book. In doing so, the ‘rough’ rainfall density is combined with the similar density forest areas.

1. Kokan (को): 2500-3500 mm: Palghar, Thane, Mumbai, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg.
2 Sahyadri (स) : 3500-7000 mm: Wesetern parts of Nashik, Pune, Satara and Kolhapur district.
3. Central Maharashtra (म) (Desh – Khandesh – Western Vidarbh) : 300-1000 mm: Dhule, Nashik, Nagar, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Beed, Solapur, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Akola, Amravati, Vashim, Jalana, Latur, Nanded, Usmanabad, Hingoli, Parbhani, Jalgaon, Nandurbar, Sangali.
4. Eastern Vidarbh (वि): 1000-1500 mm: Bhandara, Gondia, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Vardha.

Abbreviations:
Native = N
Non-native = NN
Non-invasive = Cultivated = C

Plant Habit:
C – Climber
F – Fern
G – Grass
H – Herb
P- Palm
S – Shrub
SC – Shrubby Climber
T – Tree
WA = Wetland Amphibious
WR = Wetland rooted
WF = Wetland Floating
WS = Wetland submerged

“✓” against the specific column (को/स/म/वि) in the below table indicates that the plant grows in that area.

List in alphabetical order of English letters:

Do remember to read these books: आपले वृक्ष, देशी वृक्ष, लागवड