Chapter 6 - Natural Vegetation & Wildlife, Class 7, Geography Chapter Notes PDF Download

Natural Vegetation and Wild Life

Salima was excited about the summer camp she was attending. She had gone to visit Manali in Himachal Pradesh along with her class mates. She recalled how surprised she was to see the changes in the landform and natural vegetation as the bus climbed higher and higher. The deep jungles of the foothills comprising sal and teak slowly disappeared. She could see tall trees with thin pointed leaves and cone shaped canopies on the mountain slopes. She learnt that those were coniferous trees. She noticed blooms of bright flowers on tall trees. These were the rhododendrons. From Manali as she was travelling up to Rohtang pass she saw that the land was covered with short grass and snow in some places.

From Salima’s observations, we surmise that there is a close relationship between height of land and the character of vegetations. With the change in height, the climate changes and that changes natural vegetation. The growth of vegetation depends on temperature and moisture. It also depends on factors like slope and thickness of soil. The type and thickness of natural vegetation varies from place to place because of the variation in these factors. Natural vegetation is generally classified in to three broad categories as follows:

(a) Forests: Which grow where temperature and rainfall are plentiful to support a tree cover. Depending upon these factors, dense and open forests grown.

(b) Grasslands: Which grow in the region of moderate rain.

(c) Shrubs: Thorny shrurbs and scrubs grow in the dry region (Fig. 6.2).

Salima was sharing her experience of Himalayan trip with her father. Her father visited various places in the world. He told Salima about his observations of the variety of vegetation in different parts of different continents.He mentioned about coniferous forests in the sub polar regions, thorny bushes in the deserts, thick tropical hardwood forest in the humid regions and many more. Salima realised the Himalayas have almost all variety of vegetation which one can see while moving from the equator to the polar region. 

The changes in the type of natural vegetation occur mainly because of the changes of climatic condition. Let us get to know the different types of natural vegetation of the world with their characteristic features and wildlife inhabiting there.