CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 88 of 120

Correct — A, Nilgiris. Sholas are patches of stunted montane forest that survive in the folds and valleys of the high hills of South India, separated from one another by open rolling grassland — the shola-grassland mosaic. They are found above about 2,000 metres, and from around 1,600 metres in some ranges, across the Nilgiris, the Anaimalai, the Palni, Meghamalai and Agasthyamalai hills and the Malnad country running north to Kudremukh, in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Maharashtra. Of the four highlands the question offers, only the Nilgiris carry them. The paper's word temperate follows the Indian forest classification, in which these stands are grouped as Southern Montane Wet Temperate Forest; ecologically they sit in the tropics and are better described as tropical montane.

• (b)Vindhyas — The Vindhyan range of central India is a low escarpment country, far below the height at which a shola can form. Its cover is dry and moist deciduous woodland, teak and its associates, which sheds its leaves in the hot months.
• (c)Satpuras — The Satpuras are higher than the Vindhyas but still central Indian deciduous hill country. There is no montane grassland mosaic there, and no local tradition of calling any forest a shola.
• (d)Himalayas — The Himalayas do carry genuinely temperate forests — oak, deodar, pine and fir belts on the middle slopes — which is what makes this the tempting wrong answer. Those are not sholas. The word itself is South Indian, and the mosaic of forest islands in grassland is a feature of the southern hilltops.

A shola landscape is two vegetation types locked together. Dense evergreen forest sits in the sheltered hollows where cold air drains away and moisture collects, while the exposed rounded slopes above carry grassland kept treeless by frost, wind and thin soils. The forest patches are the headwaters of a great many peninsular streams; their soils act as sponges that release water through the dry months, which is why shola loss shows up quickly as summer water shortage downstream. Much of the original mosaic was replaced during the colonial period and after by tea, and by plantations of wattle, eucalyptus and pine.

Two clues in the stem do the work. Temperate forest in India suggests height, and the name Sholas is a South Indian word, so the answer has to be a southern range high enough to be cool — which among the options is only the Nilgiris, where the Western and Eastern Ghats meet and the plateau stands well above 2,000 metres. A later NDA paper makes the same point by offering Anaimalai, Nilgiris and Palani together and accepting all three, which is a useful check that the Nilgiris are one member of a group rather than the only hills involved.

• Sholas are stunted montane forest patches set in rolling grassland in the higher hills of South India.
• They occur above about 2,000 metres, and from around 1,600 metres in some ranges.
• The ranges involved include the Nilgiris, Anaimalai, Palni, Meghamalai and Agasthyamalai, across Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Maharashtra.
• The Indian forest classification groups them as Southern Montane Wet Temperate Forest, which is the source of the word temperate in the stem.
• The Nilgiris are where the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats meet.

• Picking the Himalayas because they have temperate forest; the word shola belongs to the south.
• Treating the Nilgiris as the only shola hills. The Anaimalai and Palani hills carry them too.
• Reading the grassland as damaged forest rather than as half of a natural mosaic.

As a name-the-range item like this one, or as a statements question on where sholas occur and what the shola-grassland mosaic is.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The shola-grassland mosaic of southern India is characteristic of which one of the following?

  • (a)Coastal mangrove belts
  • (b)Higher montane regions of the Western Ghats
  • (c)The Chota Nagpur plateau
  • (d)The Shiwalik foothills

  Answer(b) Higher montane regions of the Western Ghats — forest patches in the valleys with open grassland on the exposed slopes above.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats meet in which one of the following hills?

  • (a)Cardamom Hills
  • (b)Nilgiri Hills
  • (c)Shevaroy Hills
  • (d)Javadi Hills

  Answer(b) Nilgiri Hills — the junction of the two Ghats, and the best known of the shola ranges.