Search. Flora of Sri Lanka - Forest tree species and images . They are periodically inundated by sea water. They have rain during the southwest monsoon and constitutes the lowland rain forests up to an elevation about 900 meters. These thorny trees are spreading across the Hambantota and Bundala landscape like wild fire and choking up the natural vegetation. Sri Lanka’s forests, which currently cover 29.7% of the total land area, can make a significant contribution to both adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts. Therefore, the Coconut plantations will take more time than rubber plantations to achieve an equitable distribution of trees among different age classes.Like rubber, the area of planting and replanting (Table 17 at Annex) under coconut gets affected both by international and national market prices. Scutellaria, Pogostemon, Impatiens spp. Scattered trees and shrubs like Rhododendron (Sinhala Maha rathmal) occur together with characteristic tussock grass Chrysopogon zeylanicum. They have low trees and thorny undergrowth dominated by thorny shrubs. End Date. Alien invasive species have displaced more than 30,000 acres of native forests. The have a high temperature and a high humidity. The main species are Manilkara hexandra (evergreen dominant), Sapium insigne (deciduous), Sapindus emarginatus, Strychnos potatorum, Diospyros ferrea, Randia dumetorum, Dichrostachys cinerea, Flueggia leucopyrus, Carissa spinarum, Gymnosporia emarginata, Azima tetracantha, Memecylon umbellatum, Cassia auriculata, Cissus quadrangularis, Abrus praecatorius, Hugonia mystax, Sansevieria zeylanica, Aloe barbadensis, Vicoa indica, Eragrostis viscosa, and Dactylotsenium aegyptiumLegg and Jwell (1995) have done the last assessment of forest cover during 1992 and 1994 with the help of twenty three TM quadrant and two TM full scenes from NRSA, India, six TM quadrant and four full TM scenes from Thailand, twenty two IRS-1 LISS-2 images from NRSA, India and twenty SPOT XS from an International distributor in Europe. Pothos scandens Micromelium ceylanicum, Entada sp. Invasive species are those species that have come in from elsewhere and take over the habitats and other resources of native species. The diverse vegetation of Sinharaja provides habitats to a wide array of fauna. Table 22 lists the identified species of vascular plants, vertebrates and selected invertebrates, and number of endemic species that demonstrates the high level of biodiversity in Sri Lankan forests.Researchers have invested least efforts to investigate biodiversity at genetic level, which is only limited to the economically important floral species (FSMP, 1995). Such forests are widespread in the southern escampment above 1525 M. The main species are Stemonoporus rigidus, Stemonoporus cordifolius, Stemonoporus gardneri, Garcinia echinocarpa, Alphonsea coriacea, Gordonia spp., Palaquium rubiginosum, Syzygium spp., Mastixia sp., Cinnamomum ovalifolium, Semecarpus spp., Agrostistachys coriacea, Strobilanthes spp. The two endemic shrews, the Asian highland shrew and the jungle shrew are listed as vulnerable and endangered respectively. Until the early part of this century, the higher sandy soils also had strips of littoral woodlands.

Population pressure is also a significant factor as is the removal of forested areas to make way … At higher elevations they change to montane rain forests. The best known tropical rainforest in Sri Lanka is Sinharaja, internationally recognized as a world heritage site.Kaneliya, Dedugala, Nakiyadeniya complex known as the KDN forest, Bambarabotuwa, Morapitiya Runakanda, Gilimale and Eratne are some of the other reserves. The island has also been divided into three climatic zones based on rainfall, the wet, which covers 65% of the country, intermediate covering 12% and the dry zone covers 23%.The climate is the main factor that determines the distribution and type of forests.

All rainforests such as Sinharaja are famous for the colurful array of bird life.

The draught condition, during early 1992, helped in providing good quality cloud-free imagery for the whole country during a short span of time. After the villus are inundated by the flood waters of the rivers, the waters recede and leave behind silt which is rich in nutrients and which has come with the waters from upstream. Pothos scanden Micromelum ceylanicum, Goniothalamus spp. The species level biodiversity has been less studied than the ecosystem biodiversity. Stilt and prop roots for support, pneumatopores, which are roots for breathing air and which stick out of the water to take in air, salt and to relieve excess salt are such adaptations.