Flowering trees in delhi--Jhand(Prosposis cineraria)
vinod kumar gupta
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J.M. Garg
Prosopis cineraria is a small to medium size tree, found mainly in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan in India. Common names include: Ghaf (United Arab Emirates), khejri, jand, sangri (Rajasthan), jand (Punjabi), kandi (Sind), sami, sumri (Gujarat). Its trade name is kandi.
Prosopis cineraria tree grows in dry and arid regions of Arabia and in regions of India mainly Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Western Uttar Pradesh and drier parts of Deccan and extends as far as South in Tuticorin. In this region also it is confined only to comparatively drier areas where the normal annual rainfall is less than 500 mm. In the most important areas of Prosopis cineraria distribution, the climate is dry to arid and rainfall shows considerable variation 100 to 600 mm annually with a long dry season.
In areas of its natural distribution, the climate is characterised by extremes of temperature. Summers are very hot and winters are severe with frost during December-January. The maximum shade temperature varies from about 40 to 46 °C, the absolute minimum temperature from 9 to 16 °C.
It is a tree of the plains or gently undulating ground and ravine country and seldom extends into the hills. This tree has succeeded in withstanding the odds by acquiring considerable drought hardiness.
The tree grows on a variety of soils. It is seen at its best on alluvial soils consisting of various mixtures of sand and clay. It is common on moderately saline soils, it quickly dries out where the soil is very saline.
The rural communities encourage the growth of Khejri in their agricultural fields, pastures and village community lands. Through experience, farmers have realized its usefulness and learnt that it does not adversely affect crop yields; instead, it improves grain yield and storage biomass production.
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