The Biodiversity Park on the RCD Hospital premises will soon get a facelift.
The park that houses more than 2,000 species of plants, including some rare and endangered ones, was left ravaged by cyclone Hudhud in 2014, and was later revived by a team of Dolphin Nature Conservation Society (DNCS).
VUDA Vice-Chairman T. Baburao Naidu, who went on an assessment visit to the park on Wednesday, told The Hindu that the park would get a facelift. New display boards and pathways would be developed to give the place a new look.
Carnivorous plants
“The park is a living arboretum situated in the heart of the city. It is a great platform for the student community and researchers to get a glimpse of the plant world and study many rare endemic species. We will develop systematic pathways, address seepage issues, and place new display boards with botanical, common, and local names of the plants. This will be done in a month’s time,” he said. He visited the new section of the park housing 10 varieties of carnivorous plants and released insects in the pitcher plant. Terming it as a rare and informative segment of the botanical world, he appreciated the efforts of the team of DNCS in introducing the carnivorous plant species in the park.
‘Must-visit place’
“Schools and colleges must encourage students to visit the park as part of their educational curriculum. With its vast repertoire of plant species, the park should be in the must-visit list of Visakhapatnam,” he added.
Recently, a team of over 100 researchers and medical students from Kolkata visited the park as part of their educational excursion.
The Biodiversity Park was once a stretch of barren land belonging to the hospital, mostly used to dump garbage, which was transformed into a lush-green expanse by the team of DNCS led by M. Rama Murty in the year 2003.
The park currently has over 500 medicinal plant species, a separate segment housing succulents and cacti and several important flowering species that have been attracting and supporting the lifecycles of varieties of butterflies.
