Mangaluru : Even when the common joke is going around- “One day we will see trees only in Museums…” a few scientists in city have really created a museum of wood, seeds, barks, leaves and roots. 15 years after it was set up at the Dr. Shivarama Karanth Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, in Mangaluru, this Xylarium (wood museum in common parlance) has become a pilgrimage centre for students of Botany at the international level. It is perhaps the most important institution in the state after the Forest Department’s Indian Wood Science and Technology Institute at Malleshwaram in Bengaluru.
The exhibits at the Xylerium are more than just an education for students; they are also a source of enjoyment for anyone who enjoys nature. The Xylerium is located just 75 kilometres from the mighty Western Ghats, a globally renowned repository of greenery in its many forms.
These trees, which grow in the Western Ghats and bring us rain, preserve biodiversity, and provide homes for animals, rodents, insects, and grass on top of it all, are not the familiar wood we use for our furniture, doors, and windows. This is one of the most significant facilities in Southern India, which contains the majority of the Western Ghats, according to the scientists who built it, Ramakrishna Marati and Dr. Suryaprakash Shenoy. This is one of the most significant facilities in Southern India, which contains the majority of the Western Ghats, according to the scientists who built it, Ramakrishna Marati and Dr. Suryaprakash Shenoy. Every time a researcher discovers a new species of plant or trees, it ends up in the Xylerium because we have 120 species of wood grown in the central western ghats region in our collection, they claim.
Our exhibits, according to Dr Shenoy, are made from dead trees rather than living ones. “In many items, a keen observer will see the growth rings which determine the age of the tree, the texture, the colour, changes in both texture and color due to environmental factors, and many other things. Some of them are endangered species, and Dr. Suryaprakash Shenoy and Prof. K Krishnakumar respectively,y rediscovered Madhuca insignis after 120 years, Syzygium kanareese from Jog Falls after 60 years, and Hopea canarensis from the Kudremukh area after 100 years. region. Madhuca insignis rediscovered after 120 years and Syzygium kanareese from Jog Falls after 60 years and Hopea canarensis from Kudremukh area after 100 years respectively by Dr. Suryaprakash Shenoy and Prof. Krishnakumar,” said Shenoy.
The Xylerium has 120 varieties of species from the Western Ghats plant diversity preserved in horizontal slices and vertical cuts. “None of them were cut for this purpose, our researchers and collectors have collected them when they are dead from the forests, they have treated them, and they have documented them fully with their scientific and colloquial names, the museum receives nearly 30,000 visitors annually, and more than a few times in a year we have visitors from all over the world,” said the museum’s curator.
The top officials from the forest department and the scientists from various forest research and development organisations around the country who have visited the facility have advised the government of India that “every regional science centre in the country must have a wood museum at a time when environmental concerns are at its peak, the young minds must know what is a tree when it is alive or dead, they should know the economics of tree and wood, their by-products, their importance to nature and humankind. Every Regional Science Centre must have such a facility” is one of the expressions in the visitor’s book.
Some of the unusual exhibits include a two-foot-long leaf, a cricket ball-sized tree seed, and a three-foot-long seed pod that resembles a tamarind pod. Then there is a wood that is as dark as coal, 80 different varieties of paddy, and many other exhibits that are sure to spark the curiosity of the Y generation. Then there are plants and trees that produce oil, gum, economic botany varieties, and medicinal crude drugs. has been earmarked for the authentic Ashoka tree. They all come from one of the richest parts of biodiversity conservation from the world hotspots on the central part of the Western Ghats.
* Winged seeds, medicinal plants that repels insects and many other exhibits have great value.
*Nilambaru is the only other Xylerium in South India. It is located near Ooty in Tamil Nadu, but it is dedicated only to Teak.
*The Xylerium also has the artefacts created by the tribals of Uttara Kannada district in black wood.