1. The document discusses plant diversity in India, including genetic resources for food and agriculture such as plants, animals, and microbes. 2. It outlines the major components of agrobiodiversity and lists common cultivated plants in India across categories like cereals, vegetables, fruits, oilseeds, fibers, forages, spices, plantations, medicines, ornamentals, and agroforestry plants. 3. Examples are provided for the wide variety of plants cultivated and grown wild in different regions and habitats across India.

1. By
Dr.Thirunahari Ugandhar
Asst Prof of Botany
Govt. Degree College
Mahabubabad-506101 (T.S.)

2. • UNIT-I
• 1. Plant diversity and its scope:
• A, Genetic diversity, Species diversity,
• B. Plant diversity at the ecosystem level,
• C. Agro biodiversity and cultivated plant taxa, wild
taxa.
• 2. Values and uses of Biodiversity: Ethical and
aesthetic values,
• Precautionary Methodologies for valuation,
• Uses of plants, Uses of microbes.

15. • Components of Agrobiodiversity:
• Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Plants
• Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Animals
• Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Microbial
and Fungi

23. • How Many Species are there on Earth and How Many in India.
• Since there are published records of all the species discovered
and named, we know how many species in all have been
recorded so far, but it is not easy to answer the question of how
many species there are on earth.
• According to the IUCN (2004), the total number of plant and
animal species described so far is slightly more than 1.5 million,
but we have no clear idea of how many species are yet to be
discovered and described.
• Estimates vary widely and many of them are only educated
guesses. For many taxonomic groups, species inventories are
more complete in temperate than in tropical countries.
• Considering that an overwhelmingly large proportion of the
species waiting to be discovered are in the tropics, biologists
make a statistical comparison of the temperate-tropical species
richness of an exhaustively studied group of insects and
extrapolate this ratio to other groups of animals and plants to
come up with a gross estimate of the total number of species on
earth.
• Some extreme estimates range from 20 to 50 million, but a more
conservative and scientifically sound estimate made by Robert
May places the global species diversity at about 7 million.

25. 1.Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Plants
2.Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Animals
3. Genetic resources for food and agriculture: Microbial and Fungi

26. Components of Agro biodiversity

27. • Our Common Cultivated Plants
• India is one of the countries with great diversity
of plants.
• Many of these have been domesticated as crops of
various kinds, fruit trees, ornamentals and also
medicinal plants.
• They have different growth forms as trees, shrubs, herbs
and climbers.
• In hills, coastal areas, swamps and deserts, plants
are quite different.
• Many plants brought from other countries are planted in
forestry practices.
• They are called “exotic plants”. In wild habitats species
diversity is much more than plantation, crop fields and
village orchards.

28. • Cereals: Barley, finger millet, maize, oats, pearl millet,
sorghum, wheat, and buckwheat, grain amaranth
(pseudocereals), etc.
• Grain Legumes: Chickpea, field pea, French bean, grass
pea, soybean, etc.
• Vegetables: Cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, chayote, chilli,
cowpea, Cucurbita spp., leafy amaranth, leafy brassica,
muskmelon/Cucumis spp., onion, potato, sweet potato,
tomato, etc.
• Fruits and Nuts: Apple, apricot, cherry, custard apple,
grapes, guava, litchi, macadamia nut, papaya, peach, pear,
pomegranate, sapota, etc.
• Oilseeds: Castor, groundnut, niger, rai, rapeseed,
safflower, sesame, sunflower, etc.
• Fibre crops: Cotton, marida hemp, ramie, tossa jute, etc.

29. • Forage/fodder crops: Alfalfa, barseem, buffalo grass,
Cango grass, clover, Gamba grass, Guniea grass, salt
bush, Setaria grass, Sudan grass, Tiosinte, etc.
• Spices/condiments: Aniseed, celery, clove, coriander,
cumin, fennel, nutmeg, tamarind, vanilla, etc.
Plantation crops Cashew nut, cocoa, coffee, oil palm,
etc.
• Medicinal plants: Aloe barbadensis, anise, Atropa spp.,
Digitalis spp. (tilpushpi), Hyoscyamus spp., Liquorice,
mentha, opium poppy, periwinkle, psyllium or isabgol,
rose geranium, senna, Solanumviarum, etc.

30. • Ornamental: Antirrhinum, Aster, Bougainvillea spp.,
Cactus spp., Calendula, Celosia, Chrysanthemum spp.,
Columnea, Cyclamen, Dahalia, Delphinium, Dianthus
spp., Freesia, Gladiolus spp., Lilium spp., ornamental
palms, Tagetes, Zinnia, etc.
• Agroforestry: Acacia spp., Alstoniavenenata, Australian
red cedar, Delonixregia, Eucalyptus spp., Populus spp.,
etc.
• Others Cassava, guayule, hops, jojoba, mulberry, stevia,
sugarbeet, tobacco, vilayati babul, etc.