Question

How many plant species are found in India?
A. About 45,000
B. About 40,000
C. About 47,000
D. About 20,000

Answer 1

Hint: Total number of plant species in India is less than the total number of animal species found in India. The kinds of plants in a country depends on the kinds of different climate zones that are present. Therefore, a higher variety of climate differences leads to a higher number of plant varieties. India has many different kinds of natural vegetation because of the different climatic conditions, arid vegetation to the dense rainforests. This naturally leads to a very high number of plant species.

Complete answer:
India is a country which is very rich in the variety of flora and fauna found here. It is considered a megadiverse country. Around 7-8% of all recorded species are found in India. This is because of the direct influence of diverse physical features and climatic conditions found within. There are numerous kinds of ecosystems like forests, wetlands, grasslands, desert, coastal and marine ecosystems which have a wide variety of plants. Let us now take a look at the numbers given-

A. About 45,000. This answer is incorrect as it is slightly less than the total number of plant species that are found in India.
B. About 40,000 too is significantly lesser than the recorded number of varieties of plants found in India.
C. About 47,000 is the correct answer. Though the officially recorded number stands at 47,000 species, recently studies have shown that it is very likely the number of plant species in India is much more than that.
D. About 20,000 is incorrect as it is nearly impossible that a country with such varied ecosystems and vegetation would have only 20,000 species of plants.

Therefore, the correct answer is Option C.

Note:
-Out of the total 47,000 species found in India, around 5,000 of them are exclusively found here.
-Despite having only 2.4% of the world's land area, India has 7-8% of all the known species.
-There are 34 global biodiversity hotspots designated by the IUCN. Of them, four are in India- The Himalayas, the North-East, the Western Ghats, and the Nicobar Island group.