11 JULY 2021

FLORA OF SIKKIM

“Flora of Sikkim – A pictorial guide” released by the Botanical Survey of India is a compendium of incredible kaleidoscope of flowering plants of Sikkim, which forms the biodiversity hotspots of Himalayas in the western parts of the country.

The publication lists 4912 flowering plants along with ecology, vegetation pattern and geography of the Himalayan state.

The compendium also details 532 species of wild orchids which forms more than 40 percent of all the species found in India.

In 1848, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, one of the pioneers of modern botany conducted the first botanical survey in Sikkim and published ‘Rhododendrons of Sikkim’ and ‘The Himalayan Journals’.

In 1898, the British botanists Sir George King and Robert Pantling published “The Orchids of Sikkim-Himalayas”.