For the stunning Purple Rock Orchid, its beauty is its bane. This endemic high-altitude plant, though widespread in the southern Western Ghats, is now endangered in the Palni Hills due to over-collection for home gardens – ironically – in the plains.
As for the Himalayan cherry trees, which were introduced in the region, beauty is no defence. While the trees bathe Kodaikanal town in a profusion of picturesque pink when in bloom, they are gradually displacing native trees. With observations like these — stemming from residing in these hills for more than 30 years — Pippa Mukherjee’s Flora of the Southern Western Ghats and Palnis supplies a wealth of information about 200-odd common plants seen in the Palni Hills in the southern Western Ghats.
Divided into three parts covering trees, shrubs and herbs (including grasses), each plant description in the field guide is detailed and includes separate sections for leaves, flowers and fruits.
Mukherjee has also incorporated additional information — such as uses of the plant in traditional healing systems and its history of introduction in the Western Ghats if it is an exotic. The accompanying colour plates – with an inset photograph of its leaves or flowers — are useful, and the index of leaf structural patterns handy for beginners to compare with written descriptions while identifying a plant.
The book also reproduces intricate plant line drawings by artists including Philip Fyson, a British botanist who illustrated volumes of The Flora of the South Indian Hill Stations between 1915 and 1932.
Numerous exotic and introduced species dominate this list of commonly-seen flora, giving us an inkling of how exotic plants could creep into ecosystems. Common invasive plants that threaten to out-compete native flora here include the Mexican Devil Ageratina adenophora (“...it can look pretty but beware, it can spread everywhere in no time and is an invasive pest,” writes Mukherjee) and the gorse Ulex europaeus , an introduced European bush, often called the ‘Nilgiri’s curse’.
But can indigenous species be invasive too? While the Polygonum creeper Persicaria chinensis is native to the region, the author calls it “an invasive species with deep roots that are often difficult to remove.” In the Palnis, locals harvest and sell the indigenous yet ‘invasive’ Hill raspberry Rubus niveus .
The book also lists exotic garden plants like the Common foxglove (introduced to the Western Ghats before 1915); Mukherjee’s interest in gardening also shines through in several species accounts with notes about their propagation, hybridisation or maintenance.
Many of the species listed are also common across the Western Ghats; so, despite its weight, the book could be useful for plant enthusiasts to take along on trips anywhere across the southern mountain range.
Flora of the Southern Western Ghats and Palnis ; Pippa Mukherjee, Niyogi Books, ₹1,250.
