Description

Being a primary producers plants have always outnumbered faunal elements. Botanist agree that presently there are about 2,45,000 (A recent literature search reveiled that there are ca. 3,52,000 species (belonging to 406 families) of angiosperms of which 2,73,174 are accepted species names (The Plant List 2010)) species of flowering plants on earth and these have been grouped in to 430 families, depending on the authority concerned. However, a basic knowledge of angiosperms can be acquired by a study of a selected group of families.I decided to study family Acanthaceae. The reason for the selection of this family for project is the availability of several representatives in and around Mumbai. The fascinating task compelled me to take up the project. Acanthaceae includes 250 genera and 2500 species distributed all over the world (According to recent literature at Tthe Plant List 2010, 2894 accepted species names belonging to 225 genera) . Over 70 genera and over 340 species have so far been reported from India. In Maharashtra 54 genera and 202 species have been reported.