for those of you interested in watching specific parts of this video check the description for timestamp links you can click on a specific time and fast-forward to the part that you want to watch for others let's begin in this video we are going to quickly learn about different types of forests that exist in India as you know India is a tropical country the mainland stretches from 8 degrees a 4 minute north to 37 degrees 6 minutes north the southernmost point in the Indian Territory is the India point which is located in the create Nicobar Islands while Kanyakumari is the southernmost point of Indian mainland and sea urchin glacier is the northernmost point the Tropic of Cancer divides India into two equal halves at 23 and 1/2 degree north the lower half of India lies in the tropical region and the upper half lies in this subtropical region although the temperate zone starts right from the Tropic of Cancer but there's thin Geographic and climatic zone that is located roughly between the Tropic of Cancer and temperate zone both in the north and south of the equator is called a subtropical region now we are also aware of the fact that as we go away from the equator towards the pole area temperature as well as rainfall decreases and the most important reason for this phenomena is the input of solar energy at the equator the sun's rays are the most direct on earth as you move towards the poles the sun's angle in the sky decreases and that affects the incoming solar intensity now temperature and rainfall is an important factor that affects the distribution of natural vegetation if you look at the total length of India from north to south it's about 3,200 14 kilometer with that much of landmass there's a huge latitudinal variation which in turn has a tremendous effect on the climate the variation in climate from warm Kerala to cold Kashmir is due to a large latitude extend so it is very important to understand this when we talk about the variety of natural vegetation that exists in India all right now that you have a brief overview of the latitudinal spread of India based on that Indian forests can be broadly divided into five types we will go through each one of them and get a good glimpse of India's natural vegetation the first one is tropical evergreen and semi evergreen forests carefully look at the word tropical evergreen will take the word tropical first it means the tropical region which is this place I'll show you the region on a world map and on India map let's see the second word evergreen it means green leaves throughout the year now see it altogether tropical evergreen forests are forests that are green throughout the year and they exist in the tropical region in India these forests are found in the western slope of the western carts then Hills of the northeastern region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with a mean annual temperature of 22 degrees Celsius and an annual rainfall of over 200 centimeter tropical evergreen forests are found in warm and humid areas because the tropical region is a warm and humid region because throughout the year tropical region receives a maximum amount of direct sunlight that means the temperature of the tropical region is comparatively higher and the mean annual temperature is above 22 degree Celsius as temperature increases so do the process of evaporation evaporation is a process that converts liquid into water vapor after evaporation condensation takes place condensation is the opposite of evaporation wherein water vapor is converted back into liquid form that's how clouds are formed the clouds then release the moisture as rain or snow which is called precipitation overall what we need to understand is as temperature increases so do the process of evaporation that means moist areas like tropical region have a higher evaporation rate high evaporation rate means a high amount of rain and if the evaporation rate is less that means very little rain so the tropical region is also a place where rainfall is comparatively high the annual precipitation is over 200 centimeter now more rain speeds of the rate of forest growth and that's how the trees in tropical forests are dense tall and very green if you look at the forest structure of a tropical evergreen forest at the ground level you will find shrubs and creeper plants after that you will find short trees of around 20 to 30 metres high and then comes the tall trees which goes about 60 metres high or above the reason these trees are tall because there's a competition among the trees and plants of tropical forests for sunlight the ones that are taller enjoys the maximum amount of sunlight they constantly struggle and fight to grow taller so that they can have maximum sunlight usually the uppermost branches of the trees in a forest they act as a foliage or roof or an umbrella which looks like a canopy and these canopies allow very little sunlight to reach the ground in other words light level increases as you rise into the upper layers in the trees of the tropical forest leaves of the tropical trees tend to be large long and have a narrow ending at the tip the reason the shape of the leaves of the trees of a tropical forest is like this because they have adapted to the high rainfall of tropical region the shape of the leaves helps the raindrops to run off quickly because if that doesn't happen then there will be fungus and bacteria on the leaves due to the warm temperature always remember water and heat creates moisture and moisture is good for bacterial growth since these forests appear green throughout the year therefore the trees don't shed all their leaves at once like a deciduous tree that's the forest cover looks very lush green and dense throughout the year some of the tree species found in these forests include rosewood mahogany NE and ebony similarly if you look at the semi evergreen forests they are the same as tropical evergreen forests but the addition of the word semi implies that these forests are found in the less rainy parts of tropical region such forest has a mixture of evergreen and moist deciduous trees it's very easy to understand this because the tropical evergreen forest is a dense forest and that is going to be in the interior region of a forest but then if you look at the outer boundary or parameter of a forest those are the region where it rains a little less and that has an effect on the trees in those regions trees shed the leaves quite faster and you can clearly see that the semi evergreen forest is basically a central boundary between the evergreen forest and deciduous forests or in other words we can say that the evergreen forests will degrade to semi evergreen it could be due to human interference or less rainfall it's like a descending order of a forest cover so tropical evergreen will have the maximum amount of forest cover and then slowly and gradually it will decrease heading towards deciduous forests but in between semi evergreen will be the point where few of the rich characteristics of dense evergreen forest is found some of the tree species of semi evergreen forests are white cedar holic and kale the second one is a tropical deciduous forest let's look at the word tropical deciduous forests carefully I don't need to tell you again that the word tropical means the tropical region which is this place now if you look at the word deciduous it means any plant tree or shrub that shed its leaves with thyme so tropical deciduous forests are forests that lose their leaves each year and they exist in the tropical region these are the most widespread forests in India they are mostly found in the region between the equator and the tropic of cancer and Capricorn however these forests are also found in the humid areas of this subtropical region now these forests are also known as monsoon forests because the trees in these forests shed their leaves during the dry season and again regrow during monsoon in India the monsoon or rainy season usually starts from July till September that is right after the summer season and South India typically receives more rainfall than North India that is the reason I said that these forests are mostly found in the region between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer but then some of it also exists in the subtropical region these forests are usually found in places that receive rainfall between 70 to 200 centimeter now based on the availability of water that is tropical desides forests is subdivided into moist deciduous forests and dry deciduous forests moist deciduous forests if you look at the word moist it means moisture as it is tropical region receive a good amount of sunlight all throughout the year and the moisture part has to be fulfilled through rainfall that means the region in India where moist deciduous forests are located has to have rainfall between hundred to two hundred centimeter range now if you were to find such places in India where will it be you have to immediately look at the places where it rains a lot in India you have two kinds of monsoon southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon so these forests have to be in and around such places so they are found in the states of West Bengal miserable Manipur Chhattisgarh Bihar Jharkhand Odisha Kerala Karnataka and Maharashtra carefully look at these places these are foothills of Himalayas that is a West being all Manipur and Mizoram region then parts of the chota nagpur plateau where Odisha West Bengal Bihar and Chhattisgarh comes the eastern coastal plains that is Odisha and eastern foothills of western cuts the trees in this forest shed their leaves during dry winter and dry summer due to insufficient moisture but during monsoon season the trees regrow their leaves rain and moisture are interdependent that is why moisture deciduous forest thrives during the rainy season or monsoon season these forests occupy a much larger area than the evergreen forests however they are also direct victims of human activities a large portion of these forests has been cleared for irrigation and agricultural activities some commonly species found in these forests are teak Sal Shyam hora maja Amla Kusum bamboo and sandalwood the second type of tropical deciduous forest is a dried deciduous forest by the word dry you can easily figure out that these forests are located at places where the rainfall is a little lesser than the moistness it is forest I'm talking about the rainfall range between 70 to hundred centimeter as said this before a novel repeated again if you look at the forest structure from above you will notice a pattern the transition of natural vegetation can be seen in terms of a change in colors of grasses the physical structure of the trees and many other changes in the physical appearance of a plant species there is a term given to it it is called eco tone it's a transition area between two biomes it is where two communities of vegetation meet and integrate try to see it this way if there's a lot of rainfall then that region is going to have tea evergreen forests now start moving towards the outer parameter of the evergreen forest you will find semi evergreen forests and naturally the rainfall here is a little less again you move a little outside the boundary line of tropical deciduous forests starts the first boundary will consist of moist deciduous forests naturally the rainfall here would be a little lesser when compared to the region that has a semi evergreen forest go a little bit more ahead the place will be much drier and you will find the dry deciduous forests like this the transition of the natural vegetation continues and you will find thorn forest I hope you understood this this kind of transition is called eco tone it is a transition area between two biomes if you understand this transition line then it will be easy for you to understand the entire forest structure and how it is spread out for example if you just know the temperature or the weather pattern of a particular place you can easily figure out the type of forest that place has likewise if you know the type of forest that exists in a particular place you can then figure out the temperature rainfall and the weather pattern of that place these forests are similar to moister de cities forests and shed their leaves in dry season the only major difference is that a dry deciduous forest can grow in areas of less rainfall during the dry season when they shed the leaves the forest appears like a vast grassland with naked trees all around however at the ground level you will find solid growth of grass and climber plants why because here the trees hardly have any leaves so enough sunlight reaches the ground to permit the growth of grass and lambo plants now that you know these forests have a good growth of grass and clamber plants these forests have suffered from over grazing forest fire and a large portion of these forests have been cleared for agricultural purposes dry deciduous forests are mainly seen in the areas of punjab haryana parts of Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh and southeast of Rajasthan basically central Deccan Plateau Peak Salle Laurel Tendo Palace amantha's bail care axle would are some common pleas of these forests the third one is tropical tone forests let's use the same logic break the terminology and understand every single word tropical means tea tropical region thorn it is a sharp wood to make you bleed so basically tropical tone forest is a dense and scrub like vegetation in this type of vegetation you will find thorny shrub then bushy trees you will even find a few tall trees this kind of forest occurs in the areas that receive rainfall less than 50 centimeter so you can imagine if there is less rainfall there's not going to be much of greenery if you remove the leaves from a tree what's left is thorns however I'm not saying that the trees of this forest don't have any leaves at all I mean they are few and very small in size in fact the trees remain leafless for the most part of the earth and that's how it looks like scrub vegetation but then the roots of the trees are long and most of the water is stored in the stem since we know that these forests are found at a location where the rainfall is less than 50 centimeter that means that place can also be called as semi-arid areas it is not a fully arid it is semi-arid that means these forests are found in the areas of Southwest Punjab Haryana Rajasthan Gujarat Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh they are also found on the lower side of the western carts covering large areas of Maharashtra Karnataka Telangana Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu the low side of Western cards receive less rainfall some common trees found in these forests are bubble palm Akasha cocoa care kajori bear neem kadhi palace at the sock species of grass is quite popular in this forest they grow up to a height of two meters the fourth one is montine forest if you look at the word Montaigne it refers to the mountainous region now the thing about the mountain is that the land elevation or the altitude is higher when altitude increase temperature decrease with the change in temperature there will be a change in the natural vegetation if you look at the map of India can you guess where the mountains are in mainland India broadly speaking you will find mountains in the northern part I am talking about the Himalayas it stretches from the north to the extreme eastern part of India in South India you will find mountains in the areas of the western cartes the Vindhya Range and Anil Greece now that we know where the mountains are let's get to know about the forests that exist in these places first we will look at the northern mountains if you remember the Himalayan mountains are divided into ranges they are hamari which is called Greater Himalayas then we have Himachal which is the middle Himalayas and then we have this Shivalik which is lower Himalayas the width as well as their altitude varies the height of these ranges can vary from 900 to 8000 meters above sea level and movements back we learned that as altitude increases temperature decreases that means as we go from the foothills of the Himalayas towards higher ranges due to an increase in the elevation temperature drops and that has a direct effect on the natural vegetation so Himalayan vegetation varies according to the altitude and climatic conditions it can be classified into four types tropical subtropical temperate and alpine now we'll divide the Himalayan vegetation into two parts Western and Eastern Himalayas first we look at the vegetation in the eastern Himalayas we'll go from higher altitudes to lower altitude alpine forests belt exists between 4,000 and 5,000 300 metres common trees like silver firs junipers Pines birch willows prime roses rhododendrons are found here alpine grasslands with herbaceous vegetation and short duration flowers are found at the higher region coniferous forest belt exists between two thousand seven hundred and four thousand metres some of the trees that you will find in this region are silver fir blue pine spruce and the other then comes the evergreen forest Belt it exists between 1300 and 2700 meters trees like oak poplar ends laurel birch alders magnolias are found here then comes deciduous forests which are found at the foothills of the Himalayas up to an elevation of 1,300 meters please like Sal Deak bamboo growing abundance now we will look at the vegetation in the Western Himalayas again we'll start from a higher altitude to lower altitude alpine forest dominates the region between three thousand three hundred and five thousand metres you will also find alpine grassland or meadows that grows beautiful flowering plants like rhododendrons sweet grasses shrubs with cushion leaves coniferous forest belt starts between two thousand and three thousand three hundred metres trees like the other poplar spruce saidar for maple walnut etc are found here sure pine belt lays at an altitude between 1,000 meter and 2,000 meters scrub jungles and dry forests belt extends up to 1,000 meter so overall you will notice that at the southern slopes of the Himalayas you will find thicker vegetation because of high rainfall but then as you go up with an increase in altitude instead of rain snowfall occurs and that gives rise to don't draw vegetation like mosses and lichens so this was all about the vegetation in the northern mountains of India now we will look at vegetation in these southern mountains of India when we say the mountains of South India we refer to the areas of the Western carts Deven they arranged and the nil Greece now these places are in the tropics and the elevation is not that much it is around 1500 metres above the sea level again let me remind you with an increase in the altitude temperature decreases however the mountains of South India are just 1500 metres above sea level you see it is not that high compared to the northern mountains so with this much of height the higher region of the southern mountains has temperate vegetation so it is going to be a little bit cool not that much and the lower region of these mountains has subtropical vegetation if you can recollect the lower regions of the Western cartes is usually a leave outside so there will be a very little effect of the monsoon wind as well as rainfall therefore the kind of vegetation that exists in the lower side of the Western cartes satpura range and when they arrange are usually moist deciduous forests the kind of trees that you will find in these forests are deke Sal cesium mawa bale bamboos etc similarly if you go to the higher region of these mountains you will find temperate forests these places receive a good amount of rainfall and they have a natural cover of evergreen forest which changes to moist and dry deciduous forests as one comes down the slope now these forests are called Shola's any neil greece Annamalai and Palani hills some trees of these forests are of economic significance and they include magnolia laurel cinchona and wattle and the fifth type of forest that exists in india are literal and swamp forests when you look at avoid literal and swamp it basically means wetlands wetlands are the areas where water covers the soil or you will find the water to the surface of the soil throughout the year let me quickly show you the places in India where you will find literal and swamp forests before I show you the locations I want you to know that Indian wetlands exist in the Himalayan region desert coastal plains and also near river plains if you look at the region where the river Ganga and Rama Putra drains into the Bay of Bengal it's called the Sundarbans Delta it is one of the largest mangrove forests in the world since it is an active Delta region therefore it is a swampy area and fits perfectly in the category of a wetland if you look at the geography of India almost all the East flowing rivers make a delta the places at which rivers like godavari krishna kaveri Mahanadi former Delta that is right before draining into the Bay of Bengal that place is usually a swampy wetland and it will have swamp and littoral forests wetlands also exist in the desert region of Rajasthan and Gujarat in Rajasthan sambal Lake is the largest inland saline wetland of India the collodion National Park is a man-made wetland in Rajasthan in Gujarat the great run of kuch is a salty marshy land in the thar desert then Gujarat coastal Westlands I'm talking about the coastal sites in Gulf of Khambhat and Gulf of Kutch has swampy wetlands the lakes and rivers of the mountainous regions of Kashmir and Ladakh I am talking about bula Lake which is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia the lake is part of India's wetland sites in Ladakh so more eerie wetland is a popular wetland found in and around the so more eerie lake you will also find mangrove forests and other wetlands in the islands of Andaman and Nicobar now these islands have a lot of mangrove creeks and coral sites similarly in the islands of Luxur dweep coral reef wetlands are very common the western coastal plains extending the Malabar Coast to the Konkan Coast has a lot of wetlands these are one of the richest wetland habitats and the largest on the southwestern coast of India there is a United Nations international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands for signed it ransom that's how the rancer convention came into existence its mission is to conserve and use the wetlands wisely through local national and international cooperation it has a list of wetlands that exist all around the world they are also called as Ramsar sites meaning these are wetlands that are approved by the Ramsar convention and they are protected here are the state wise names you can have a quick look at it all right so these were the five types of forests that exist in India I hope you have found this video helpful let me know your thoughts in the comment section thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one