ABOUT Botanical Survey of India :

In a rapidly developing country like India, it is necessary to survey and document the floristic wealth of the country, which is essential to monitor the changes in the floristic composition, to assess threat status and to effectively implement conservation measures for different habitats or specific taxa. Hence, the Botanical Survey of India is playing a vital role in documenting the floral wealth of the country. The Botanical Survey of India is the apex research organization under the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change with the mandate of Survey, Collection, Documentation (including the traditional knowledge associated with plants), acting as the custodian of authentic collections in well planned herbaria and ex-situ conservation of wild plant diversity of the country.

The BSI headquarters is located in Kolkata with the other regional offices such as Central National Herbarium (Howrah), Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden (Howrah), Central Botanical Laboratory (Howrah) and Industrial Section Indian Museum (Kolkata). Besides these, there are 10 regional centres located in different phytogeographical regions viz. Allahabad, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Hyderabad, Itanagar, Jodhpur, Pune, Portblair, Shillong and Sikkim. In addition, a Botanic Garden of Indian Republic is located in Noida.

Western Regional Centre (WRC), Pune
The Western Regional Centre is one of the oldest centres established during 12th December 1955, after the reorganization of the Botanical Survey of India. In the earlier days it was housed in the Law college premises and later in 1958 it was shifted to its own building in 7 - Koregaon Park Road, Pune. However, the old Pune Herbarium was started over a century back in 1880 under Dr. Theodre Cooke, an Irish engineer and Botanist.

Since its inception, the jurisdiction of this centre has undergone many changes and the present jurisdiction of this regional centre includes the entire state of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and Union territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagerhaveli. The Western Regional Centre of BSI is having different units such as Herbarium, Museum, Library, Botanical Garden and Mycological Laboratory.

This centre is concerned with exploration and inventory of flora of the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and Union territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagerhaveli. Northern Western Ghats is one of the biodiversity hotspots falling under this regional centre. Besides different vegetation types such as Evergreen, Semi-evergreen, Moist deciduous, Dry deciduous, Scrub & Thorn forests, Shola grasslands, Semi-arid grasslands, Mangrove & coastal forests, Plateaus and Wetlands are significant of this region.

Herbarium
The herbarium of Western Regional Centre is known by its international acronym BSI. It is the leading herbarium of the Western India and is indispensable to the research work in the field of taxonomy in various plant groups. The herbarium inherited specimens through the historic and precious collections of T.Cooke, W.A. Talbot and J.Indarji Thakar. Several other major plant collections to this centre includes collections by Bhide, Burns, Chibber, Gammie, Garade, Godbole, Kanitkar, Narayan, Paranjpye, Patwardan, Ranade, Rayn, Woodrow, Albert, Chatterjee, Fischer, Gage, King, Mokim, Prain, Scortichini and Willis. Along with the old collections continued with other successive collections made by various botanists till date results in housing of about 1,33,901 accessioned specimens in the herbarium including 712 type specimens. The type specimens are maintained separately in Type Section.

Museum
The regional center has a museum with more than 800 exhibits including large carpological collections. Panels depicting various plant groups, vegetation types, herbarium specimens of threatened and endangered species, poisonous or toxic plants, fossil collections, etc. have been displayed in the museum. Representative specimens of Algae, Fungi and Lichens are also displayed in the museum.

Library
The Library of Western Regional Centre has 9502 accessioned books and journals on various fields of botanical science, especially plant taxonomy, floristics, floras, monographs, ehtnobotany, medicinal plants, phytogeography, ecology and environmental sciences. Some of the significant classical old publications available in the library are, van Rheede’s Hortus Malabaricus (1678-1703), Linnaeus’s Genera plantarum (1837), Species plantarum (1753) and Mantissa plantarum (1771) and various classical publications such as Flora Indica, Prodromus Florae Peninsula Indiae Orientalis, Icones Plantarum Indiae, Icones Plantarum Asiaticarum, The Bombay Flora, Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, Flora Sylvatica for Southern India, Forest Flora of Bombay Presidency & Sind and so on. Many National journals viz.: Current Science, Phytotaxonomy, Nelumbo, Journal of Economic & Taxonomic Botany, Indian Forester, Indian Journal of Forestry, Journal of Mycology & Plant Pathology are currently subscribed at the centre.

Laboratory & Scanning Electron Microscope
A Molecular laboratory, Fungal laboratory and Tissue culture laboratory is also established in this centre to undertake various studies. Besides Scanning Electron Microscope facility is also available to undertake Ultra-microscopic studies.

Experimental Botanic Garden
An experimental botanic garden in Mundhwa, covering an area of about 44 acres is located about 10 km away from the main office. Another garden of about 5 acres is also maintained in main office premises. Indigenous species of about 400 plant species are housed in these gardens. In addition to above more than 100 species of medicinal and economic plants, many orchid species and fern and fern allies are also being grown in the garden. Some of the endemic and threatened plants conserved in the garden are Aerides crispa, Aerides maculosa, Argyreia nervosa, Arisaema murrayi, Bombax ceiba, Ceropegia attenuata, Ceropegia hirsuta, Curcuma caulina, Curcuma pseudomontana, Frerea indica, Nothapodytes nimmoniana, Pectilis gigantea etc.

Our Divisions
Central Botanical Laboratory, Howarh
Central National Herbarium, Howrah
Indian Botanic Garden, Howrah
Northern Circle, Dehradun
Eastern Circle, Shillong
Southern Circle, Coimbatore
Western Circle, Pune
Central Circle, Allahabad
Arid Zone Circle, Jodhpur
Sikkim-Himalaya Circle, Gangtok
Arunachal Field Station, Itanagar

Advisory Services
The Centre also provides advisory services for identification and authentication of plant specimens for several Research students, B.Pharm and M.Pharm students. Students from various universities and colleges consult the Herbarium and the Library for their research in Taxonomy, Floristics and Revisionary studies. Technical advice and guidance on collection, identification of plants, their distribution, nomenclature etc. are furnished to individuals, research students from different institutes, forest department etc. Many school students, undergraduate and postgraduate college students from different parts of India visits this regional centre as part of their education tour.

Our Scientist :