Which of the following trees is NOT of evergreen-forest type?
- (a)Deodar
- (b)Silver fir
- (c)Sal
- (d)Blue pine
Correct — C, Sal.
Sal (Shorea robusta) is the signature hardwood of India's tropical moist deciduous forest. In Uttarakhand it clothes the Terai, Bhabar and Shiwalik foothills and the Doon valley, well below the conifer country.
Its leaf habit is deciduous. The canopy thins in the hot months before the monsoon and flushes again with the rains, so the tree is grouped with the monsoon deciduous forests rather than the evergreen ones.
The other three are needle-leaved Himalayan conifers that carry their foliage through the year. Sort the list by habitat belt first — foothill broadleaf against temperate conifer — and the odd one out separates itself.
- (a)Deodar — Deodar (Cedrus deodara) is a temperate conifer of the western Himalaya, growing in Uttarakhand roughly between 1,800 and 2,600 metres and holding its needles the year round.
It is the answer to a question asking for the prized timber conifer of the drier inner Himalayan valleys, not to one asking for a tree that sheds its leaves.
- (b)Silver fir — Silver fir (Abies pindrow) sits above the deodar belt, in the upper temperate and sub-alpine conifer forests of the western Himalaya, giving way to birch nearer the treeline. Its foliage persists through the winter snow.
It is what you want when the question asks for the conifer of the high, cold, snow-fed upper temperate belt.
- (d)Blue pine — Blue pine (Pinus wallichiana), locally kail, carries its needles in bundles of five and occupies the moist temperate belt above the chir pine zone. It is evergreen.
It answers a question asking which Himalayan pine takes over from chir pine at higher, moister elevations.
Trees are sorted by leaf habit. An evergreen keeps a working canopy through the year, replacing leaves a few at a time; a deciduous tree drops its leaves together in an unfavourable season and stands bare until the next flush.
Indian forest classification is built on that habit plus climate. Tropical evergreen, moist deciduous, thorn and Himalayan temperate forests are named for how their dominant trees behave, not for the individual species alone.
In the Uttarakhand Himalaya the vegetation stacks in belts as you climb. Sal holds the foothill country at the bottom, the conifers take the hill and temperate slopes above it, and birch and rhododendron scrub reach up towards the treeline.
An item like this is a test of that vertical zonation dressed as a botany question. Once each name is placed on its altitude band, the forest type follows from where the tree lives.
- Sal (Shorea robusta) is the dominant species of India's tropical moist deciduous forests and is a broad-leaved hardwood, not a conifer.
- In Uttarakhand, sal forest occupies the Terai, Bhabar and Shiwalik foothill belt together with the Doon valley.
- Deodar (Cedrus deodara) is a western Himalayan temperate conifer, found in Uttarakhand roughly between 1,800 and 2,600 metres.
- Silver fir (Abies pindrow) belongs to the upper temperate and sub-alpine conifer forests, above the deodar and blue pine zone.
- Blue pine (Pinus wallichiana), or kail, bears needles in fascicles of five and grows in the moist temperate belt above chir pine.
- Chir pine (Pinus roxburghii) forms the conifer belt immediately above the sal forests on the lower Uttarakhand hill slopes.
- Champion and Seth's classification places sal under tropical moist deciduous forest, while deodar, blue pine and fir fall under Himalayan temperate types.
One foothill broadleaf, highlighted, set against three needle-leaved conifers of the Uttarakhand temperate belt.
- The stem asks which tree is NOT of evergreen type, so the tree wanted is the deciduous one; answering the question the stem did not ask costs the mark.
- Sal stands bare only for a short spell in the hot season, which can make the tree feel evergreen; forest-type classification still places it in the moist deciduous group.
- Silver fir and blue pine are less familiar names than deodar, and unfamiliarity can be mistaken for oddity — the discriminator is leaf habit and altitude belt, not how well known a name is.
- Treating 'conifer' and 'evergreen' as interchangeable labels is unsafe; place each tree by its forest type rather than by the shape of its leaves alone.
The idea appears as an odd-one-out among tree names, as a match-the-pairs between species and forest type, and as a statement item asserting that a named tree is evergreen or deciduous.
It also arrives geographically — which belt of a hill state carries sal, which carries deodar — or through a region that combines several forest types. In each version the work is the same: place the species on its climate-and-altitude band.
UPSC_2015_GS1_Q382015Same vocabulary of forest types — evergreen against deciduous — used as the discriminator. It differs in direction: that item names the forest types and asks for the region (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), while this one names the trees and asks for the forest type.
UPSC_2021_GS1_Q632021Same underlying test of whether a named tree is evergreen, in the statement 'Moringa is a leguminous evergreen tree'. It differs in species and setting: tropical economic trees judged through a multi-statement code, not a single odd-one-out among Himalayan and foothill species.
CAPF_GAI_2021_Q842021Same idea that evergreen habit means foliage held through the year, stated there as photosynthesis continuing year round. It differs in scale and biome: tropical rain forest soils and productivity at the ecosystem level, rather than sorting four named Indian trees.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Sal (Shorea robusta) is characteristic of which one of the following forest types of India?
- (a)Tropical thorn forest
- (b)Tropical moist deciduous forest
- (c)Himalayan moist temperate forest
- (d)Sub-alpine forest
Answerb — Sal is the dominant hardwood of the tropical moist deciduous, or monsoon, forests of India.Tropical thorn forest belongs to the dry western and interior tracts of acacias and scrub. Himalayan moist temperate forest is the deodar, blue pine, oak and fir country. Sub-alpine forest lies higher still, near the treeline, where sal does not grow.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In Uttarakhand, sal forests are chiefly found in which one of the following belts?
- (a)The Terai, Bhabar and Shiwalik foothill belt including the Doon valley
- (b)The temperate belt of deodar and oak
- (c)The sub-alpine fir and birch belt
- (d)The alpine meadows above the treeline
Answera — Sal occupies the low foothill country of the Terai, Bhabar and Shiwalik ranges along with the Doon valley.The temperate belt above it is held by deodar, blue pine and oak. The sub-alpine belt carries fir and birch. Alpine meadows lie beyond the treeline and support grasses and herbs rather than sal.
- practice — not a real PYQ
A forest described as 'tropical moist deciduous' is best characterised by which one of the following?
- (a)Trees stay in leaf through the year, with no marked leafless period
- (b)Most trees shed their leaves for a short period in the dry season before the monsoon
- (c)Vegetation consists chiefly of thorny shrubs and scattered acacias
- (d)Needle-leaved conifers dominate the higher temperate slopes
Answerb — the defining trait of a moist deciduous forest is the seasonal leaf fall in the dry pre-monsoon months, followed by a fresh flush with the rains.Option a describes evergreen forest. Option c describes tropical thorn and scrub. Option d describes the Himalayan temperate conifer belt. Only b names the deciduous habit the term refers to.