A Field Guide to Flowering Plants of The Mekal Hills [Hardcover] Shivaji Chaudhry; Naveen Kumar Sharma and Nidhan Singh [Hardcover] Shivaji Chaudhry; Naveen Kumar Sharma and Nidhan Singh Hardcover – 1 January 2019

I am Sandip Kumar Chandraker (PhD scholar) in the same university. I have known two authors of this book since 2016, Dr Shivaji Chaudhary sir, we are well aware of his knowledge in plant taxonomy, and Prof. Naveen K Sharma (Former Head of our Department and Dean of Faculty of Science, IGNTU) who always inspired us for doing better research. Whenever we need information about any flora around Achanak-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve (AABR), we contact these professors directly. Dr Shivaji Chaudhry sir surprisingly tells us the exact scientific name and family of almost all plants. At present, the number of researchers and scientists working in the field of plant taxonomy is continuously decreasing. In such a situation, this book will prove to be a milestone in the field of plant taxonomy, especially plants of AABR. While compiling this book, I have seen Shivaji sir's hard work and commitment while compiling this book, so I request to all of you to buy this book and earn the knowledge contained in it.

Being the author of book let me take the responsibility of writing the first review of the book. As I a researcher I learnt a lot of plant taxonomy from Dr. K. Haridasan, thereafter frequent field trips to eastern Himalayas I developed a keen interest in plant taxonomy. During those days Flowers of Himalaya by Oleg Polunin and Adam Stainton used to be the benchmark which further increased my appetite for this subject. Also I worked with the IUCN freshwater species group for red listing in 2009-2010 and realized how important taxonomy was? I started works for this book in year 2012 itself when I joined IGNTU; I used Flora of Madhya Pradesh: Chhatarpur and Damoh by G.P. Roy as reference material and started collection of web images of plants. Thereafter I met Dr. Naveen Kumar Sharma who inspired me for writing a Field guide of University campus. I met Dr. Nidhan Singh during a visit to our University and he also helped me with identification and editing of taxonomic notes. As the photographic documentation piled up I realized that, I need to write a book which catered to wider geographical area. Need for a funding a book publication was realized and soon I wrote a minor research proposal to Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board. I finally got the project number MPSBB/M (P)/2016/625 dated 24th May 2016. After getting the grant I started documentation works in Achanakmar Biosphere Reserve, Kanha National Park, Bhoramdeo Wildlife Sanctuary. A total of 2 districts of Chhattisgarh and 5 districts of Madhya Pradesh were covered during the field trip. This book contains 410 species of plants with its description and coloured plates; the description portion contains the scientific name, synonyms and common name. In addition it describes the usage value, habitat and IUCN threat listing category; also notes have been given to describe the species and also its flowering and fruiting time. A summary describing Mekal Hills, methodology and results of this work has been provided at the beginning. For ease of the beginners the species are arranged alphabetically which has been nicely arranged by glossary of photo plates just after the content page. In this field guide I tried to give coverage to trees, shrubs and herbs equally, two photos are given in each plate for a broad and clear view. Photographic quality could have been tad better and I will see it happen next time around. Finally I thank Scientific Publishers, Jodhpur for their cooperation. I really hope that it attracts the plant lovers and young learners to the subject, hope all of you have a pleasant reading of the book!!