Pune: The Botanical Survey of India ’s western regional centre in Pune will soon open a botanical garden in Mundhwa on 44 acres of land comprising endemic species of the state. The garden will house over 400 species of plants indigenous to India, with 50 of them being exclusively endemic species to Maharashtra . According to researchers of BSI, 1,750 species out of 4,900 plant species are endemic to the Western Ghats located in the state, one being the Shiv Suman flower, an endangered species connected to the state’s history.
The garden will be titled the ‘ Mundhwa Botanical Garden ’. “As years passed in our surveys, we observed that the plants we saw on each of our trips wouldn't be present the next time. We concluded that this happened due to the increase in human interference in the surrounding habitats, threatening the local endemic species,” said A.
Benniamin, scientist F. and head of office, BSI, western regional centre. The garden will also have plants from Karnataka such as the endangered nutmeg (Myristica magnifica Bedd.
), blistering varnish tree (Holigarna grahamii (Wight) Kurz), blackboard tree (Alestonia venenata R. Br.) which is native to south India, wild nutmeg (Kmema attenuata Warb.
) which is endemic to India and Syzygium stockssi (Duthie) Gamble, which is native to southern and western India. The project, which started in 2023, involved researchers from BSI surveying the landscape of Western Ghats in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Goa. Following this, seeds of endemic plants from each region were collected.
The seeds were then cultured and sprouted in a lab setting and grown to be a sapling. Once the saplings were deemed stable, they would then be transferred to the garden landscape for further growth. “This project will help us conserve all the species of plants that would have probably been extinct if human intervention persists,” said Benniamin.
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