Epiphytic Lichens in Tea Gardens of Assam, India

Abstract

The paper deals with the occurrence of epiphytic lichens on shade trees and tea plant Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze in tea gardens of Assam. The shade trees are usually leguminous and include Albizia odoratissima (L.F.) Benth., A. chinensis (Osbeck) Merr., A. moluccana Miq., A. procera (Roxb.) Benth., A. lenticularis (L.) Willd, A. lucidior (Stend.) Nielsen, A. lebbeck (L.) Benth., Dalbergia sericea G. Don and Derris robusta (Roxb. ex DC.) Benth. A total of 80 species of lichens distributed under 28 genera and 11 families have been recorded. Out of these, 79 (98%) species grow on leguminous trees, 14 (17%) species grow both on leguminous trees as well as on tea plants, while a single species Strigula hypothallina R. C. Harris has been found confined only to tea plants.

Pyrenula chlorospila (Nyl.) Arnold (Pyrenulaceae), a new addition to lichen biota of India

“…and some on the bark of species of Artocarpous, Mangifea, Michelia, Polyalthia, and Ricinus. Based on the literature (Awasthi 1961;Rout et al 2005Rout et al , 2010Rout et al , 2012Singh and Sinha 2010;Das et al 2012Das et al , 2013Gupta et al 2013;Daimari et al 2014;Dey et al 2015;Choudhury et al 2016;Gupta and Sinha 2018;Gogoi et al 2019;Joseph et al 2020;Behera et al 2021), our record of P. chlorospila represents a new addition to the lichen biota of India. With this addition, 12 species of Pyrenula have been recorded from Dhubri district (Table 1).…”

A less known taxa: Lichen records from Assam, NE India

“…The study of lichen diversity from this study area was started by Stirton (1881). In the latter years various researchers have worked on the lichen diversity of Assam along with the other parts of North East of India Awasthi and Singh, 1973;Pant andUpreti, 1993, Rout et al, 2010;Gupta et al, 2013;Daimari et al 2014;Choudhary et al, 2016;Mishra et al 2019;Sinha, 2016. Recently, Gogoi et al, 2018 have have reported some new species from this region.…”