Diversity of the Grasses (Excluding Bamboo) of Nadia District, West Bengal and their economic potentiality

By : Sunit Mitra, Sobhan Kumar Mukherjee

Page No: 353-366

Abstract:
Nadia district lies between 22°53? and 24°11? North latitude and between 88°09? and 88°48? East longitude. The district lies in the state of West Bengal, in eastern India. It borders Bangladesh to the east, North 24 Parganas and Hooghly districts to the south, Bardhaman district to the west, and Murshidabad district to the north. The district is covered under Presidency Division and occupies 11th position in the State in respect of its size with an area of 3927 sq. km. This present work is an attempt to enumerate the grasses of Nadia district which is a long wanting demand to prepare a complete list of the grass flora of the State of West Bengal.

In present work it is observed that the district of Nadia comprises of 78 species and 1 – variety of grasses under 42 genera in 9 tribes distributed under 4 – subfamilies.

In the present conspectus the members of the tribe Bambusae and the 4 – most widely cultivated taxa of grasses viz. Oryza sativa, Triticum aestivum, Saccharum officinarum, and Zea mays is not included in the list. It is also evident that, the district of Nadia lacks endemic species of grasses. Last but not least it must be included that, this list is not a complete list in every respect. Because of lack of data in addition to that, disagreement over interpretation of taxa. It is observed that 79 taxa of grasses of Nadia district are can be used in 81 different ways which may be grouped under 8 – broad categories (Mitra 2005, 2009).

Authors :
Sunit Mitra : Associate Professor in Botany, Ranaghat College, Ranaghat, Nadia – 741201.
Sobhan Kumar Mukherjee : Professor (Retd.), Plant Taxonomy and Biosystematics Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Nadia – 741235.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/JPSR.2020.36.1-2.45