American Journal of Plant Sciences, 2012, 3, 697-708 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2012.36084 Published Online June 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ajps) 697 Glimpses of the Lichen Flora of Achanakmar-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve in Central India Achuta Nand Shukla 1 , Krishna Pal Singh 2 1 Botanical Survey of India, Northern Regional Centre, Dehradun, India; 2 Botanical Survey of India, Central Regional Centre, Alla- habad, India. Email: achutbsi@gmail.com Received April 5 th , 2012; revised May 12 th , 2012; accepted June 2 nd , 2012 ABSTRACT The present paper enumerates an account of the lichen flora in Achanakmar-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve located in Central India which comprises 78 species belonging to 25 genera under nine families. Of these, twenty two species have been reported for the first time from Central India. All the species are enumerated with their correct original citation, basionyms if any, their places of occurrence in the reserve area, distributional range and exsiccata have been provided. Keywords: Lichen; Contributions; Achanakmar-Amarkantak; Central India 1. Introduction India, being one of the megadiversity countries in the world, has designated 16 Biosphere Reserves all over the country [1]. Of these, Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve and Achanakmar-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve (AABR) are located in Central India. Achanakmar-Amarkantak Bio- sphere Reserve an interstate biosphere reserve situated in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states (Figure 1). The Achanakmar-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve (AABR) comprising of an area 3835.51 km 2 , lies between 22˚15'N to 22˚58'N lat. and 81˚25'E to 82˚50'E long. in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattishgarh. From the existing demarcated area of the reserve, ca 551.15 km 2 of area was earlier marked as Achanakmar Wild Life Sanctuary has now been designated as core zone of this reserve and remaining area of 3284.36 km 2 is marked as buffer zone (Figure 1). Of the total area of buffer zone, ca 1224.98 km 2 falls in Madhya Pradesh and remaining area of 2059.38 km 2 in Chhattisgarh states [2]. The biosphere reserve area is one of major watersheds of peninsular India separating rivers draining into Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. The reserve is the source of three major river systems viz., Narmada, Johilla and Sone. The area has a typical mon- soon climate with three distinct seasons viz., summer from March to June, rainy season from July to October and winter season from November to February. The reserve has the varied topography and climatic conditions which provide congenial habitat for the unique diversity of plants. The vegetation of the forest area of the reserve re- presents tropical deciduous and can be further classified into Northern Tropical Moist Deciduous and Southern Dry Mixed Deciduous forests [3]. The altitudinal ranges of reserve with varied climatic and edaphic conditions give rise to rich and luxuriant vegetation in Central India [4-7]. During the survey it has been noticed that the area has several intermittent patches of moist and dry decidu- ous forest. Shorea robusta is the major component of these forests, associated with the tree species of Termi- nalia and Syzygium. It is interesting to note that sal forest provides a most congenial habitat for lichen growth as they are exposed to rain, sunlight and wind currents. Majority of the lichens belong to foliose forms show their predominance as the species of Parmotrema and Dirinaria are found growing commonly on young bran- ches and old tree trunk having hard bark at breast height. The species of Lecanora shows luxuriant growth on soft and smooth trunk of young sal tree. Among these, the species of Pertusaria show their rich growth on sal tree particularly growing in dense moist places along the streams. In addition to these, other taxa of lichen are also abundant in humid and shady areas of the sal forest. These taxa are Buellia, Lecanora, Canoparmelia, Bul- bothrix, etc. The study of literature reveals that not much work has been done on the lichen flora of Achanakmar-Amar- kantak Biosphere Reserve except Nayaka et al. [8] and Upreti et al. [9] in which they have reported 32 species belonging to 22 genera and 26 families from Achanak- mar Wildlife Sanctuary. The present report of 78 species of lichen are the additions to the earlier record made by Nayaka et al. [8]. Copyright © 2012 SciRes. AJPS