Nelumbo - The Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India

T. A. Davis ¹

Affiliations
1 Haldane Research Centre, Nagercoil 4, Tamilnadu, IN

Abstract

Living in an environment totally devoid of green vegetation, man turns crazy as is often experienced by scientists who have to live in the white wilderness of the Arctic ice-cap. They create artificial cardboard conifers to soothen the famished eye. A few examples of special relationship between animals and plants are given below. For the baya weaverbird (Ploceus philippinus), green strands of leaf blades at the nest is a sign of industriousness, and males who can weave efficient nests get many mates during one season. For the aboriginee women of Jeya, the bark of Cinnamomum kami is a defense against their brutal husband. When harassed, they threaten to eat kami and become sexually sterile, not capable of producing a male issue who is the pride and support for the father at his old age. The male deer-pig (Babirussa babirussa) always sharpens his tusk on the butress-ischolar_mains of Canarium sp. Where such buttressed trees are felled or not available, the animal migrates to another region. The malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata) piles leaves and brambles over its large, 10-m wide nest. With rains, the organic materials liberate heat enough to hatch the eggs of the fowl that doesn't brood over the eggs. At the reclaimed land of the Sumatra swamps, where the natural ecosystem is disturbed by coconut plantations, rare crustacean and mammalian pests start ravanging the coconut. Small-holders grow pineapple, tapioca, banana and yams at the borders of gardens established in forest areas for these pests to get satiated with their produce and spare the coconut. Man endeavours to improve the dry and parched soil to raise a green coconut Canopy by difficult means. He even converts the marshy swamps by providing suitable drainage system into a land suitable for raising crop plants. Man is also capable of replacing an uneconomic crop in favour of an attractive one, thus going upto the extent of clearing mountains of Coconuts in favour of more paying crops bke the clove. The largest flower (Refflesia arnoldi) and the gigantic arum (Amorphophallus titanum) emit odour unbearable for human being in order to attract pollinating agents. Coconut trichomes serve as poison to insect pests like Setora nitens and Chalcoscelids sp. Particularly in South India, people are causing the rapid disappearance of the "karpaka vriksham", (Borassus flabellifer), the hope for people of dry regions. The Caconut crab (Birgus latro) is alleged to subsist mostly on coconut and hence its popular name. However, thus has recently been proved to be untrue since the crab can live without coconut. The painted stork carries green twigs to its nest having chicks. DO these twigs protect the chicks from diseases, pests or excessive heat? The common crow, Corvus splendens is an example for an animal that reduces its dependence on plants. It switches over to metal nests in place of the traditional nest made of twigs and brambles.

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