Learning more about Goa’s plant life
In Goa’s rich flora and fauna, there is a lot more documentation required to understand nature. Suryakant Gaonkar has documented 150 species of plant life in his new book ‘Gomantakatil Pushpavaibhav’, with photos of trees, shrubs, wild flowers, creepers and also wild orchids
Arti Das
As the monsoon season gains momentum, the one activity we all like to indulge in is trekking to forested areas of Goa, or prior to that in summer season to explore the wooded areas to harvest wild berries. Such activities give us immense pleasure and also an excuse to be with nature.
But, then, how many of us especially urban dwellers can identify the trees, shrubs, and vines found there which makes these forests? It is indeed a herculean task as in a forest all trees look similar. However, now this job is done litter easier with this new book in Marathi by Suryakant Gaonkar titled, ‘Gomantakatil Pushpavaibhav.’ It is a photo book that has listed 150 species found in our forests. It mainly consists of trees, shrubs, wild flowers, creepers and also wild orchids.
Suryakant who hails from the village of Bhuipal in Sattari taluka, spent his childhood trekking through forests around his village. As he loved exploring the wild side of Goa, it was quite natural that he started photo-documenting the flora found there. He has till now documented 1200 species of wild flowers.
The turning point came in his life when he joined Vivekanand Environment Awareness Brigade (VEAB) in 2007 and meeting environmentalist, Rajendra Kerkar. It was him who inspired him learn more about flora of Goa and introduced him to botanist at Goa University Dr Sharad Kambli and Dr Rutuja Kolte.
This book is the outcome of his research which he started formally from 2015. The information shared in this book is based on the column he wrote for Marathi daily, couple of years ago. The book gives details about each tree, its morphology, its usage, etc.
When asked whether he has seen changes in ecology in all these years, he promptly points out the diminishing flora of plateaus, especially of Mopa plateau that was home to some rare and endemic species. He points out forest trees like ‘Nano’ or ben teak (Lagerstroemia microcarpa), ‘ghagro’ or Indian Zebrawood (Connarus monocarpos), ‘Kangla’ or black oil plant (Celastrus paniculatus) are diminishing day by day. Some of these like fruits of Indian Zebrawood are used to decorate matoli.
He laments that now people do not have much knowledge about forest species and thus indulge in wrong practices. He says, “During Ganesh Chaturthi for matoli decoration there is no need to hang the whole bunch of fruits. All items used for matoli should be used as a sample. Nowadays our markets are flooded with this forest produce for matoli. Most of the times all are not sold and thus it results in wastage. So, one must be mindful while harvesting them for matoli.”
He mentions that in olden days only few village elders knew about certain plants and trees. He says, “They used to never share details like where it is found and only they knew when and where to harvest, especially the medicinal plants. This was I believe a way to stop exploitation of that particular species.”
Suryakant suggests that it may not be easy to remember all trees. But it is essential to know few forest species like ‘Arjun’ tree (Terminalia Arjuna), which has medicinal qualities or ‘Karmal’ (Dillenia indica), its fruit is known as elephant apple and it is used to make pickle and also used as an insecticide to protect paddy cultivation. ‘Reetha’ tree (Sapindus trifoliatus), which is known as soap nut tree as its seeds can be used a detergent, dishwasher, etc. Other some important trees are ‘matti’/’madat’ (Terminalia elliptica), which is also one of the state trees, ‘ghoting’ (Terminalia bellirica), ‘shidam’ (Tetrameles nudiflora), known for its buttress trunk, etc.
He is now planning to bring out three new books as he has documented around 400 species of trees and plants.
