A Synopsis on the Phytodiversity of Lakshadweep Islands

The present work on Phytodiversity of Lakshadweep islands provides a Synopsis of the plants occurring in Lakshadweep Islands which enlists 476 angiospermous taxa comprising of 472 species and 4 subspecies/varieties, under 309 genera and 97 families. The works also elaborates the dominance of Dicotyledonous taxa over monocotyledons and the genus Cyperus L. as the most dominant genus on the Islands with 14 representative species. The taxonomic details provide citation of each species with it’s synonym if any, with brief description and distributional status of various taxa on individual Islands of the Lakshadweep. Taxonomic keys to the families, genera, species and infraspecific taxa are provided within the text.

The synopsis also comprises of 65 colored photographs of the sea shore and important plant species occurring on the Islands, the graphs elaborate taxa analysis and there are tables which highlight the conspectus and percentage of the taxa, ten dominant families, eight dominant genera, edible and medicinal plants occurring on the Islands.