Day: November 4, 2014

Rudrakash Elaeocarpus blascoi: Last Tear of Siva???

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5Mukhi
Panch Mukhi (5 faces)

Rudraksha tree and its seed are held in great esteem for religious purposes. The nuts are very strong and has faces (mukhas) formed by engraved lines from its head to the bottom across the outer surface. Most common nuts have 5 faces and are called “Panchmukhi” meaning with five faces. Most precious is the one with 21 faces and only two go them are said to exist. There price may range anything between 10 to 15 lakhs INR.

rudra21
21 Mukhi (21 faces)

The nuts have the potential of medicinal values. Most of the members of the family Elaeocarpaceae have indolizidine alkaloid compounds, which have attracted a great deal of interest on account of their ability to inhibit the enzymatic activity of glucosidases. Hence, there is some potential to explore it further in the treatment of cancer, HIV and blood pressure.

In indian mythology tree are connected with Lord Siva who is said to have shed tears of grief and the tear drops became trees when they fell on the soil. These trees in India are confined mostly to North Eastern and Southern India.

The trees do not proliferate in numbers in wild. This is because of the extreme hard shell of the nut and low permeability to Moisture. This results in poor and erratic germination. Not only that the tree takes more than15 years to start flowering. So many species are in the process of becoming endangered.

One such tree: Elaeocarpus blascoi belongs to family which is confined to only to the Palani Hills in Tamil Nadu, is facing threat of extinction as just one tree of the group survives. It was discovered in Bear Shola of Palni Hills, Tamil Nadu in 1970 and was later found to be extinct during the exploration of the flora of Palni Hills. Fortunately, it was rediscovered in another region of the Kodaikanal forests in 2000 with only one living individual. It is a strict endemic species to Palni Hills of Western Ghats found on the fringes of the moist evergreen forest above 2,150 meters and included under Endangered category (World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998) and Red list of IUCN. Elaeocarpus blascoi is a canopy tree growing up to 20 meter tall in moist evergreen forests with short new branches.

Elaeocarpus-blascoi-flowers
Flowers

Various propagation techniques like tissue culture are required to raise saplings keeping in view the extremely poor results of germination from nuts. At present, there are two saplings of the tree with an conservation NGO.

Elaeocarpus-blascoi-sapling-in-cultivation
Sapling

Come back of Gharials in Punjab rivers

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The gharial, scientific name Gavialis gangeticus are natives of indian subcontinent. Since they mostly eat fish they are also known as fish eating crocodiles. As the scientific name indicates they are most commonly found in river Ganges. Like Ganges, they were also found in the rivers of North. But almost half a century ago, they vanished from Punjab’s rivers.
There is a famous zoo near Chandigarh. It is called Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park. It is located at a place Chhat Bir. Bir in Punjab is the name given to a forest. There is in that zoological park, a pair laid eggs in captivity and newborns were hatched from 17 eggs. These were carefully looked after and have survived contrary to the earlier botched up attempts. These have crossed the fragile days when mortality rate is high and now getting ready to be sent into the river waters which is their natural habitat.

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Punjab wildlife department has taken a bold initiative to bring them back to their natural habitats in the month of February when the first batch will swim in the Beas and Satluj – two tributaries of the Indus river system.
The project already has got the approval of Union ministry of environment and forests. First the department will educate the inhabitants living along these rivers about the habits of these animals. That they are harmless to humans and eat only fish.
Gharials, which are also known as fish-eating crocodiles, fall in Schedule-I category of Wildlife Protection Act and are considered critically endangered species.
According to district gazetteers of British period, there was a considerable population of gharials in these rivers. Gazetteers of the first decade of the last century have several references regarding their presence. But it was last seen in these rivers when the maharaja of Kapurthala had shot a gharial in 1968.