The beautiful Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (RTR) has more surprises to offer than you would expect. The reserve has shown signs of a speedingly growing patch of Litsea Glutinosa. What’s more special is that for the first time, rainforest trees were noticed in Rajasthan.
Although the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve is famous for its fauna species, flora has also never failed to impress visitors and forest lovers.
Recent study of the flora
An extensive study was carried out by Singh and Srivastava who presented the following statistics of families, species and genera. The duo unearthed 98 families, 328 genera and 539 species from RTR. Other bionature journals are rejoicing over this piece of news and are highlighting the need to publish it as records.
Who took the first leap?
The duo didn’t mention the thriving patch, which was only later noticed by Satish Kumar Sharma, ACF Forests and Dharmendra Khandal, Conservation Biologist, Tiger Watch, in the Bionature Journal. Sharma spotted the patch of Litsea Glutinosa in the RTR.
“Confluence of Aravallis and Vindhyas mountain ranges is present within the legal boundaries of the park. This is the reason why biotic elements from both the regions are present at the Tiger Reserve.
A patch of Litsea Glutinosa trees was noticed and identified by Sharma on the way to the main gate of Tiger Reserve to Ranthambore fort.
What is Litsea Glutinosa?
Trees bear glossy, large sized alternate leaves, which are thinly coriaceous and softly hairy on both surfaces initially,” said Khandal.
On their upper surface, leaves become shiny and soft. Even the inflorescence axes, branchlets and petioles are also soft and hairy.
Khandal explained that flowers are green and yellow hued. The remains of the flower tubes are shining, spherical and seated on a characteristics thickened green stalks. On maturity, these fruits turn become purple and blackish in colour.
