Forests and Natural Vegetation of India: Types and Trees

The correct answer is D, Red sandal. Red sanders, or red sandalwood, is a tree of the dry deciduous forest and grows almost entirely in the Seshachalam and Palakonda hills of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh, where it is prized for its dark red heartwood; it is not a thorn forest species. Options A, B and C are all classic trees of the tropical thorn forest, which grows in the semi-arid belt receiving less than 70 centimetres of rainfall. Khair, the catechu tree, yields the katha used in paan. Keekar and babool are names for the acacia that dots the plains of Rajasthan, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. All three carry thorns, small leaves and long tap roots, the standard adaptations for a dry habitat, while red sanders is a taller tree of a moister and shadier forest type.

The correct answer is C, Deciduous forest. Tropical deciduous forest is called monsoon forest because it is the natural vegetation of the monsoon climate, growing where rainfall lies between 70 and 200 centimetres and where a marked dry season follows the rains. Its trees shed their leaves for six to eight weeks in the dry months to save water, and it is the most widespread forest type in India, yielding teak, sal, shisham and sandalwood. Options A and B, rain forest and equatorial forest, describe the evergreen forest of the heavy rainfall belt above 200 centimetres, which has no leafless season at all. Option D, mountain forest, is classified by altitude rather than by the rainfall regime and changes from oak and chestnut through pine and deodar to alpine meadow as one climbs, so it is not tied to the monsoon rhythm.

The correct answer is B, Reserved forests. Indian forests are classified administratively into reserved, protected and unclassed forests, and the first two together are described as the permanent forest estate, that is land maintained permanently for timber and other forest produce and for the protection of soil and water. Reserved forests are the most valuable of the three and enjoy the strictest protection, with grazing and cultivation prohibited or closely regulated. Option A, unprotected forests, is not one of the recognised administrative classes at all. Option C, unclassed forests, covers the remaining wooded land, a great deal of it owned by communities and private persons in the north-east and in Gujarat, and it lies outside the permanent estate. Option D, community forests, again describes ownership rather than an administrative class, and such land usually falls within the unclassed category.

The correct answer is C, Mautam. Melocanna baccifera, the muli bamboo, covers large tracts of Mizoram and the neighbouring hills and flowers only once in about half a century, after which the whole stand dies. The flowering produces a flood of protein rich seed, rats multiply on it, and when the seed is finished the swarm moves into the paddy fields and destroys the crop, causing the famine that Mizo tradition calls mautam. Option A, the Chalisa famine, struck northern India in 1783, in the Vikram Samvat year forty, and had nothing to do with bamboo. Option B, Upper Doab, names a region between the Ganga and the Yamuna and not a famine of this kind. Option D, Doji Bara, is the skull famine that hit the Deccan and Hyderabad in the 1790s. Only mautam is tied to the flowering cycle of a bamboo species.

The correct answer is A, tropical evergreen forests. These forests grow where annual rainfall exceeds 200 centimetres, on the windward western slopes of the Western Ghats, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in upper Assam and along the hills of the north-east. Because rain falls through most of the year, the trees have no fixed leaf fall, the canopy stays green and the forest is tall and layered; rosewood, mahogany, ebony, aini, cinchona and rubber are its commercial species. Option B, thorn forests, grows on less than 70 centimetres of rain and carries babool, khair and khejri instead. Option C, alpine vegetation, is found above about 3,000 metres in the Himalaya and consists of silver fir, juniper, birch and rhododendron, and then of grasses. Option D, dry deciduous forest, receives 70 to 100 centimetres and gives tendu, palas, amaltas and bel.

The correct answer is A, Sundari. The sundari, whose botanical name is Heritiera fomes, is the dominant mangrove of the Ganga and Brahmaputra delta and gives the Sundarbans its name; its timber is hard and was long used for boats and posts. The Sundarbans is the largest single block of mangrove forest in the world, is shared between India and Bangladesh and is the best known home of the Royal Bengal tiger. Option B, sal, is a tree of moist deciduous forest in the Chhotanagpur plateau, the Terai and central India, and cannot grow in saline tidal mud. Option C, keora, is genuinely a mangrove associate of the same delta, but the forest is not named after it. Option D, screw pine, grows on sandy coasts and in swampy ground but is a shrub-like plant of the littoral fringe rather than the defining tree of the Sundarbans.

The correct answer is B, mangrove or tidal forests. Mangroves grow in the salty, waterlogged mud of deltas and creeks, where the soil holds almost no oxygen, so the roots send up narrow pegs called pneumatophores above the mud surface to breathe, and many species also stand on arching stilt roots for support in the soft ground. Such forests line the deltas of the Ganga, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri and act as the coast's first defence against cyclonic surge. Option A, alpine forests, grows on cold, well drained mountain slopes and needs no such adaptation. Option C, thorn forests, faces the opposite problem of too little water and adapts with long tap roots, small waxy leaves and thick bark. Option D, montane temperate forests of oak, pine and deodar, grows on hill slopes where drainage is free and oxygen in the soil is plentiful.

The correct answer is B, temperature and moisture conditions. Harry Champion and S. K. Seth revised the earlier survey of Indian forest types in 1968 and grouped the forests into major groups such as moist tropical, dry tropical, montane subtropical, montane temperate, sub-alpine and alpine, each divided further into types, using the climatic controls of rainfall, humidity and temperature. Option A is wrong because soil influences vegetation but is not the basis of this scheme, although saline and waterlogged soils do produce the separate littoral and swamp group. Option C describes the administrative classification into reserved, protected and unclassed forests, which is a different scheme used for management. Option D, ownership, is again an administrative matter and largely overlaps with the unclassed category rather than with any botanical grouping.

The correct answer is C, 33 per cent. The National Forest Policy of 1952 fixed the goal of keeping about one-third of the total land area of the country under forest, with a larger share in the hills and mountains, where slopes need tree cover to hold the soil, and a smaller share in the plains. The policy of 1988 reaffirmed that target and shifted the emphasis from revenue to ecological balance and to meeting the needs of forest dwellers. Option A, 20 per cent, and option B, 25 per cent, are figures sometimes quoted for the plains alone, and examiners offer them precisely to catch a candidate who remembers only a part of the policy. Option D, 40 per cent, corresponds to no national target and is a plain distractor. The Forest Survey of India measures progress towards the goal in its biennial report.

The correct answer is B, the Forest Survey of India. It works under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has its headquarters at Dehradun, maps the forest and tree cover of the country with satellite imagery and field checks, and brings out the India State of Forest Report once every two years. Option A, the Wildlife Institute of India, is also at Dehradun but trains wildlife managers and carries out research on species and habitats rather than mapping forest cover. Option C, the Botanical Survey of India, has its headquarters at Kolkata and surveys and documents the plant wealth of the country, including rare and endangered species. Option D, the National Biodiversity Authority, sits at Chennai and administers the Biological Diversity Act, regulating access to biological resources and benefit sharing. Only the Forest Survey of India issues the cover assessment.

The correct answer is B, Shola. Sholas are small, dense, stunted evergreen forests that survive in the sheltered valleys and folds of the high hills of the Western Ghats above about 1,500 metres, and they alternate with rolling grassland to form the shola grassland mosaic, a habitat of the Nilgiri tahr. Option A, bugyal, is the name given in Uttarakhand to the alpine meadow above the tree line, used as a summer pasture by the Gujjars and the Bhotiyas, and it belongs to the Himalaya, not the peninsula. Option C, terai, is the marshy, spring-fed belt at the foot of the Himalaya, south of the bhabar, once covered with tall grass and dense forest. Option D, bhabar, is the narrow porous belt of pebbles and boulders right at the foot of the Himalaya where the streams disappear underground.

The correct answer is D, below 70 centimetres. Tropical thorn forest and scrub is the natural vegetation of the semi-arid belt that runs through Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, south-western Punjab, western Madhya Pradesh and parts of the Deccan interior, where rainfall falls short of 70 centimetres. The plants are widely spaced and stunted, with long tap roots that reach deep moisture, small or waxy leaves that check transpiration and thorns in place of leaves in many species; babool, kikar, khair, khejri, neem, palas and cacti are typical. Option A, above 200 centimetres, gives tropical evergreen forest. Option B, 100 to 200 centimetres, gives moist deciduous forest with teak and sal. Option C, 70 to 100 centimetres, gives dry deciduous forest with tendu and palas, which is the immediate neighbour of the thorn belt and the answer most often confused with it.