Shola Forests of Palni hills, Southern Western Ghats, India

Tropical montane forests are the unusual type of vegetation in which the grassland mixed with evergreen trees in the valleys on mountains of above 1800m asl. The shola forest is found extensively in the higher elevations of the Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka of Southern Western Ghats. The shola biome has a high water retention capacity and exists as the precious source of water for the high altitude organisms and also the source for many streams and rivers in the Western Ghats. The entire shola forest of Palni hills have been explored and categorized based upon the information available with forest department. There are ten shola forest viz. Kukkal Shola, Mathikettan shola, Vattakkanal shola, Tiger Shola, Kundan Shola, Bear Shola, Pambar Shola, Shenbaganur Shola, Perumalmalai Shola and Bombay Shola reported in the entire forest areas of Palni hills. Periodical field exploration trips were conducted to document the floristic wealth of Angiosperms of selected ten Shola forests of Palni hills. All the species reported were described with detailed taxonomical description along with the author citation, vernacular names, flowering and fruiting, distribution and utility.