Educational field trip of M.Sc. Botany Sem IV students to Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh

A field trip of the students of M.Sc. Botany was conducted in the month of March 2018 to the Himalayan foothills in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. The towns, suburbs and forests of Dharmshala, McLeodganj and Palampur were visited during the trip. Systematic survey of vascular plants was carried out over a period of three days. The terrain was traversed on foot to cover all the landscape features such as water channels, ridges, grasslands, agricultural fields, near human habitations and various habitats in and around forests. This mountainous state of Himachal covers an area of 55,673 km². Most of the state lies on the foothills of the Dhauladhar Range. The climate varies from hot and subhumid tropical in the southern tracts to, with more elevation, cold, alpine, and glacial in the northern and eastern mountain ranges. Kangra is located at 32.1°N 76.27°E. It has an average elevation of 733 metres (2404 ft). Students collected the flowering plants and cryptogams from the terrain and compiled field notes on collected specimen to aid in the identification. Field identification was carried out using keys and floras. CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT) was visited on the third day. The institute was established in 1984 is a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The students were given a guided tour of the institute by Dr. S. K. Vats and his associates. He briefed the students about the various advanced research aspects of Himalayan Bio-resources and modern biology and gave a bird’s eye view of the research activities being conducted at the institute. The students were addressed at all the divisions by the scientists engaged in research at these departments.  Flora of the area was explored including, more than 200 flowering plants, cryptogams and various species of Gymnosperms. Plant specimens of academic interest such as Ginkgo biloba, Ephedra, Equisetum etc. were bought as potted plants to be grown at the Botanical garden of Khalsa College.