Flora of India

The flora of India is one of the richest in the world due to the wide range of climate, topology and habitat in the country. There are estimated to be over 18,000 species of flowering plants in India, which constitute some 6-7 percent of the total plant species in the world. India is home to more than 50,000 species of plants, including a variety of endemics. The use of plants as a source of medicines has been an integral part of life in India from the earliest times. There are more than 3000 Indian plant species officially documented as possessing into eight main floristic regions : Western Himalayas, Eastern Himalayas, Assam, Indus plain, Ganges plain, the Deccan, Malabar and the Andaman Islands.

Quotes

• An example is the elaborate plant taxonomy in ancient India. According to the assessment of William Jones, published in 1795, this taxonomy was more advanced than the standard Latin-based ones used by Western botanists. Jones writes: 'I am very solicitous to give Indian plants their true Indian appellations, because I am fully persuaded that Linnaeus himself would have adopted them had he known the learned and ancient language of this country …'
  • (William Jones 1795: 237-312). William Jones, quoted in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• It may briefly yet categorically be stated here that the earliest book of the Aryans, viz. the Rigveda, does not mention any of the species of cold-climate trees... On the other hand, all the trees mentioned in the Rigveda, such as the Asvattha (Ficus Religiosa L.), Khadira (Acacia catechu), Nyagrodha (Ficus benghalensis), to name just a few, do not belong to a cold climate but to a tropical one.
  • Lal, B. B. (2005). Can the Vedic people be identified archaeologically?–An approach. IT, 31, 173-194.