ISHS Acta Horticulturae 769: XXVII International Horticultural Congress - IHC2006: International Symposium on Asian Plants with Unique Horticultural Potential
COMPUTERIZED DATABASE OF IMPORTANT NATIVE LANDSCAPE PLANT SPECIES IN HIMACHAL PRADESH IN INDIA |
| Authors: | P. Thakur, Y.D. Sharma, N.S. Chauhan, S.P. Dhall, A. Thakur |
| Keywords: | agro-climatic zone, HIMFLORA, identification, landscape designing, relational database management system |
| Abstract:
Landscaping deals with the decoration of a tract of land by planting flowering plants in such a way that it creates a picturesque and naturalistic effect. It involves improving of total living environment for the people. Plants, from their natural habitats, can be selected for the beautification of parks, public and private places in urban as well as in rural areas. With this idea in view, a study on native landscape plants was undertaken in all four agro-climatic zones of Himachal Pradesh. This state is gifted with the wide array of landscape plant species and this diversity in plant species may be due to varying geo-physical and climatic conditions prevailing in different parts of the state. Identification and evaluation of native trees, shrubs, climbers and herbaceous plants, orchids and ferns was done on the basis of habit, form, height, spread, bark character, foliage characters (leaf texture, arrangement, color, shape, size, emergence and fall leaf color), flowering characters (inflorescence, flower color, shape, size and flowering period), fruiting characters (fruit color, shape, size and fruiting period) and their landscape uses. A specific relational database management system (RDBMS) ‘HIMFLORA’ was prepared in MS Access XP on the basis of data generated on morphological description and landscape values of plant species during this study. HIMFLORA provides information according to the user need for different purposes in desired formats and according to different combinations of stored characters. This computer-aided decision making is not only useful in selecting suitable plant species for landscaping of preferential sites but also for taking quick decisions in landscape designing of other identical agro-climatic zones of the country. | |
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