Tree Wealth of Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India: An updated checklist

A checklist of all indigenous and naturalized trees of Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh State, India was made. There are as many as 510 taxa (73 families, 252 genera) in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh State which here enumerated under family names alphabetically. The nomenclature of the taxa is updated. The popular name, trade name, tree height, vegetation type, and district-wise distribution to each taxon are provided in tabular form. Country of origin / nativity was provided for exotic species. Of the total 510 indigenous/naturalised species, 40% are distributed in a wide variety of vegetation types. Introduction Trees are the major constituents of forests and have been called the structural elements of the ecosystem. A tree, by forester’s and ecologist's definition, is a woody plant that attains diameter of 10cm (30cm girth) or more at the breast height (130cm above ground). The trees differ from other plants in having cambium tissue that accounts for the woody nature of the stem. Shrubs, which are also woody, differ from trees as the first branch extensively from the base near the ground while the trees branch much above and usually have a single stem emerging from the ground level. Trees provide basic needs of human beings in the form of air, food, timber, plywood, paper, fuel wood, medicine etc. They form the most noticeable living objects. In the absence of a detailed database of tree wealth Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, the present study has been undertaken Material and Methods The Eastern Ghats are isolated hill ranges in Peninsular India, that harbours primarily tropical deciduous vegetation, found in eastern parts of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh (lying between 13°30' 19°07' N and 77°28' 84°45' E) covers a hilly terrain of Coastal Andhra with nine districts: Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari (north coastal districts), Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, Prakasam (south coastal districts) and (2) Rayalaseema with four Ceded districts: Anantapur, Chittoor, Cuddapah and Kurnool (3) Telangana (Deccan) with 3 districts: Khammam, Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda (Figure 1). The wide range of topography and other physical features of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh State, provided by the hills raising to about 1527 m altitude, shaped the land to harbour rich and varied flora. The principal geological formations were Charnockites and Khondalites in northern part and Quartzites and Slate formations (Cuddapah basin) in southern part. The rainfall varies in between 600 mm in southern Eastern Ghats to 1700 mm in northern Eastern Ghats. The forests in the Ghats are broadly classified into Tropical Dry Deciduous, Tropical Moist Deciduous, Tropical Semi-Evergreen, Tropical Thorn (scrub) and Tropical Dry Evergreen types (Champion & Seth, 1968). The number of Check List 5(2): 173–194, 2009. ISSN: 1809-127X


Introduction
Trees are the major constituents of forests and have been called the structural elements of the ecosystem.A tree, by forester's and ecologist's definition, is a woody plant that attains diameter of 10cm (30cm girth) or more at the breast height (130cm above ground).The trees differ from other plants in having cambium tissue that accounts for the woody nature of the stem.Shrubs, which are also woody, differ from trees as the first branch extensively from the base near the ground while the trees branch much above and usually have a single stem emerging from the ground level.
Trees provide basic needs of human beings in the form of air, food, timber, plywood, paper, fuel wood, medicine etc.They form the most noticeable living objects.In the absence of a detailed database of tree wealth Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, the present study has been undertaken
The wide range of topography and other physical features of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh State, provided by the hills raising to about 1527 m altitude, shaped the land to harbour rich and varied flora.The principal geological formations were Charnockites and Khondalites in northern part and Quartzites and Slate formations (Cuddapah basin) in southern part.The rainfall varies in between 600 mm in southern Eastern Ghats to 1700 mm in northern Eastern Ghats.The forests in the Ghats are broadly classified into Tropical Dry Deciduous, Tropical Moist Deciduous, Tropical Semi-Evergreen, Tropical Thorn (scrub) and Tropical Dry Evergreen types (Champion & Seth, 1968).The number of flowering plant taxa occurring in the Andhra Pradesh is 2750 (Gamble & Fischer 1935, Pullaiah et al., 1997, Reddy et al. 2001, Reddy et al. 2002, Reddy & Raju, 2006).
Information from three sources was utilized to prepare a checklist: specimens deposited in various herbaria, taxonomic literature, and field surveys.Information of species presents family and genus-wise alphabetically arranged (Table 1).Additional information such as popular (Telugu) and trade names, tree height (large, medium or small), vegetation type, district-wise distribution in the Eastern Ghats of State are provided.
The district-wise analysis of Eastern Ghats shows that 201 species were common to all the districts.Visakhapatnam with 329 taxa tops the list, followed by East Godavari (252), Chittoor (244), Cuddapah (236),and Kurnool (229).The large number of reports from the above districts may be due to more exploratory studies and/ or their geographic locations.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Map of India showing Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh state.

Table 1 .
Checklist of tree wealth of Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India.