Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has 304 different plant species, according to a biodiversity report released by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) today. The IIT Roorkee-sponsored study was the first such documentation of flora and fauna present in the 175 year-old campus.
“An important discovery for the IIT Roorkee campus is the finding of Typhoniuminopinatum, a herbaceous plant belonging to the family Araceae (Arum). This is the first record for the state of Uttarakhand,” an official statement said.
The five-month long floristic survey revealed a diverse assemblage of plants belonging to trees, shrubs, herbs as well as woody and herbaceous climbers.
A total of 304 species belonging to 237 genera and 87 different plant families were recorded within the campus.
Of these majority are represented by flowering plants or the angiosperms (291 species), while gymnosperms or cone-bearing plants were represented by 9 species.
Four pteridophytes, which include ferns and their kin, were also documented.
Among the floral types, trees were the most dominant with 140 species, followed by herbs (91 species), shrubs 45 (species), and 28 species of climbing plants.
Professor Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee, said, “Human influence is accelerating climate change, thus raising serious environmental concerns globally. Thus, it was time to look back to nature to adopt more sustainable ways of living, keeping in mind the future of our planet.”
“It all starts with one's immediate surroundings and fortunately for us our IIT Roorkee campus is blessed with large green areas that rightly qualifies our campus as an “Urban Greenspace”. And to further our continuous efforts to protect the environment, a collaborative study with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun was initiated and the result is an inventory of the floral and faunal wealth of the campus. Through this document, I am sure many of our faculty, students and staff, and others within the campus, and elsewhere, will be further inspired by Nature,” Prof Chaturvedi added.
