GENERAL CEARACTER OF TEE FLORA. 



Next to cultivation the first radical change due to man is 

 to reduce the forest to a coppice or scrub condition in which 

 the species are exposed to the effects of selective browsing. 

 The species which survive longest are apparently those rich, 

 in tannic acid, or with a formidable armature of thorns. On 

 some of the hills most subject to goafc-grazing, as well as to 

 annual fires, the coppice is nearly pure Cleistanthns collinus. 

 In some cases, a coppice of Chloroxylon is very abundant 

 although this is a comparatively rare tree in the forests. 

 This also owes its preservation to the acrid nature of the 

 leaves. 



Although thorn woodland is, in the main, a formation due 

 to climatic factors, there is ample evidence that its production 

 or extension in Chota Nagpur is largely a result of selective 

 cutting and grazing. Man in his cutting avoids thorny 

 trees and bushes as animals avoid them. The quantity 

 he removes for fencing purposes is comparatively trifling. 

 In the mixed Sal and Khair forests of Palamau, the Sal is 

 the more abundant in proportion to its distance from towns 

 and villages. Carissa has found no footing at all in the 

 comparatively dense forest areas of Singbhum; it thrives 

 over the greater part of Hazaribagh, where the jungles 

 are open formations, but more specially, as said above, on 

 sandy soils. 



A statement of the relative abundance and of the asso- 

 ciation of individuals of dominant genera aDd species fre- 

 quently gives a better picture of a flora to a forester than 

 can be obtained by mere numbers of species in dominant 

 families. This is especially the case with small families 

 containing gregarious species. The Sal is a case in point, 

 which, though giving a peculiarly distinctive character 

 to the Bengal-Deccan flora, does not appear at all in a list 

 of dominant families. For the forester then, the province is 

 well characterized by the almost general association in large 

 numbers, on the one hand, of Sal, Anogeissus spp., Bassia 

 latifoliar Gardenias, Butea spp.> Schleichera, and the grasses 



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