INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS - India Environment Portal

Section XIV : Plant Sciences 9
hard wood trees, however, only few are reported on conifers. They may be weak
parasites or parasites on roots of hard woods causing root rots. Only few are
terricolous, associated with termite nests. ‘Wuling Ginseng’ (Xylaria nigipes) is
mentioned as medicinal and edible mushroom in Chinese literature. As many as 39
species of the genus have been previously reported by various workers, from
different regions of India. . Out of which only nine were reported from Western
Himalayas. During the last three decades, extensive fungal forays have been
undertaken by the author and his students to collect and study these fungi from
various localities of Western Himalayas. Great diversity was noticed in the
morphology and distribution pattern of the taxa within the genus under different
altitudnal zones viz. tropical, sub-tropical, temperate and alpine zones. Zone wise
analyses of the species has also been done. An illustrated account of 31 species
of the genus, based on himalayan collections, has been given in this paper. A key
to all the reported species from the region is also included. 22 species are new
reports for western Himalayas, while 19 species are new records for India. Three
species have been reported as new species.
10. Plant Biodiversity and Impact of Biotechnology on Biodiversity
C. M Govil
Department of Botany,
C. C. S. University,
Meerut-25000-1
Keywords : Biodiversity, megacentres, flora fauna, conservation, threatened species
Biodiversity can be measured at any level from over all global biodiversity
to ecosystem, community, species, population, individuals and even to gene within
a single individual. A region with large number of individual species is said to be
biologically diverse, and a species with large number of interpopulation differences,
when each population gets genetically diverse is called genetic diversity of
species. Biodiversity is the foundation of the earth and is crucial to the functioning
of ecosystem which provides us with the products and services without which we
could not live. It provides us oxygen, food, fresh water, fertile soil, medicines,
shelter, protection from storms and floods, stable climate and recreation. All these
have their source in nature a healthy ecosystem. We depend on it for our