Valley of Flowers National Park

Chamoli District, Uttarakhand, India
Part of	Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks
Reference	335-002
Inscription	1988 (12th Session)
Extensions	2005
Area	8,750 ha (33.8 sq mi)
Coordinates	30°43′48″N 79°37′03″E / 30.73000°N 79.61750°E / 30.73000; 79.61750
Location of Valley of Flowers National Park in Uttarakhand Show map of Uttarakhand Valley of Flowers National Park (India) Show map of India Valley of Flowers National Park (Earth) Show map of Earth

Valley of Flowers National Park is an Indian

The park is open only during summer from June to October and is covered by heavy snow for the rest of the year.[1]

History

Documented explorers

The place was little known to the outside world due to its inaccessibility. In 1931, Frank S. Smythe, Eric Shipton and R. L. Holdsworth, all British mountaineers, lost their way while returning from a successful expedition to Mt. Kamet and happened upon the valley, which was full of flowers. They were attracted to the beauty of the area and named it the "Valley of Flowers." Smythe later authored a book of the same name.^[5]

In 1939, Lady Joan Margaret Legge, (21 February 1885 – 4 July 1939) a botanist deputed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,^[2] arrived at the valley to study flowers and while traversing some rocky slopes to collect flowers, she slipped and died.^[6] Her sister later visited the valley and erected a memorial near the spot.^[3]

Prof.

1931: The valley visited by the climber Frank S. Smythe who wrote a book publicising the "Valley of Flowers";

1934: The upper

1936: Mountaineers Bill Tilman & Noel Odell climbed Nanda Devi;

1939: The basin established as the Nanda Devi Game Sanctuary by Government Order 1493/XIV- 28 of 7/01;

1962: Border disputes closed the area to traffic, altering the local economy;

1974–82: The sanctuary was opened to mountaineering, but the ensuing degradation led to its closure to all users;

1980: The park was established as Sanjay Gandhi National Park by Notification 3912/ XIV 3-35-80; grazing and mountaineering stopped;

1980: The Valley of Flowers was declared a national park by Government Order 4278/XIV-3-66-80 under the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, for the conservation of its flora;

1982: The park was renamed Nanda Devi National Park;

1988: The Nanda Devi National Biosphere Reserve established (223,674 ha) with the national park as core zone (62,462 ha) and a 514,857 ha buffer area surrounding both sites; restrictions were imposed on the rights of nearby villagers. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site;^[9]

2000: The Biosphere Reserve extended by the government to 586,069 ha and the Valley of Flowers National Park was added as the second core zone (62,462 ha+ 8,750 ha, totalling core areas of 71,212 ha);

2004: The two core zones and buffer zone designated a UNESCO MAB reserve.

Geoclimatic

Location

Getting to the Valley of Flowers requires a trek of about 17 km (10.5 mi). The nearest major town is

Visitors are not allowed to stay inside the National park and accommodation can be obtained at Ghangaria.[1]^[12] The best time to visit is between July and early September, when the valley is full of flowers, just after the outbreak of monsoon.^[1]

Geography

The Valley of Flowers is nestled in the

The area lies on the

Climate

Being an inner Himalayan valley, the Nanda Devi Basin has a distinctive micro-climate. Conditions are generally dry with low annual precipitation, but there is heavy monsoon rainfall from late June to early September. Prevailing mist and low cloud during the monsoon keeps the soil moist, hence the vegetation is lusher than is usual in the drier inner Himalayan valleys. From mid April to June temperatures are moderate to cool (19 °C maximum). The Valley of Flowers also has the micro-climate of an enclosed inner Himalayan valley, and is shielded from the full impact of the southwest summer monsoon by the Greater Himalaya range to its south. There is often dense fog and rain especially during the late summer monsoon. Both Basin and Valley are usually snow-bound for six to seven months between late October and late March, the snow accumulating deeper and at lower altitudes on the shadowed southern than on the northern side of the valleys.^[13]

Ecology

Biodiversity

The Valley of Flowers is a high-altitude Himalayan valley that has long been acknowledged by renowned mountaineers, botanists, and in literature. It has been recognized internationally for over a century and is referenced in the

• 
  Flowers blossomed in the valley
• 
  A Flower in Valley of Flowers (VoF)

  .
• 
  Another Flower in Valley of Flowers (VoF)
• 
  Flower snapshot in VoF
• 
  Flower blossoming
• 
  Beautiful purple flowers in VoF
• 
  Beautiful flower snapshot

Flora

Three types of sub-alpine zones

The valley has three types of sub-alpine zones as follows: foothills alpine between 3,200 m and 3,500 m which is the upper height limit for trees, lower alpine between 3,500 m and 3,700 m, and higher alpine above 3,700 m. The habitats include valley bottom, river bed, small forests, meadows, eroded, scrubby and stable slopes, moraine, plateau, bogs, stone desert and caves. The lower surrounding hills in the buffer zone are thickly forested. The Forest Research Institute in 1992 recorded 600 species of angiosperms and 30 pteridophytes in the valley and surroundings, discovering 58 new records for the valley of which 4 were new for Himalayan state. Of these plants, 5 out of 6 species globally threatened are not found in Nanda Devi National Park or elsewhere in Uttarakhand: Aconitum falconeri, A. balfouri, Himalayan maple (Acer caesium), the blue Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis aculeata) and Saussurea atkinsoni. 31 species of rare and endangered categories were observed within the national park in 1998.^[15] Further his studies report that the dominant family in Valley of Flowers is Asteraceae with 62 species.^[16] 45 medicinal plants are used by local villagers and several species, such as Saussurea obvallata (brahmakamal) are collected as religious offerings to goddesses Nanda Devi and Sunanda Devi.^[17] The site is designated a Centre of Plant Diversity.^[16]

Characteristic of the sub-alpine zone are high altitude forests which help to retain moisture and snow and support a large number of floral and faunal communities. It is dominated by the uncommon Himalayan maple Acer caesium (VU), west Himalayan fir

The flowers were surveyed and inventoried in 1987 by the Botanical Survey of India, in 1992 by the Forest Research Institute and in 1997 by the Wildlife Institute of India which found five species new to science.

Flowers mostly

• 
  Himalayan bell flower, Campanula latifolia
• 
  Morning dew on a pink flower, Geranium sp
• 
  Multi storied flowers, Morina longifolia
• 
  Meadow Geranium (Geranium pratense) in the heart of Valley of Flowers

Fauna

Species diversity

The density of wild animals in the valley is not high, but all the animals found are rare or endangered. Prior to 2004, a total 13 species of mammals are recorded for the park by CP Kala

Predators, leopards and bears

A October 2004 faunal survey established the presence of

Reptiles

Among the reptiles, most often seen are the high altitude lizard

Stigmatopelia chinensis.

Conservation

Conservation management

The park is administered by the Uttarakhand State Forestry Department, the national Ministry of Environment and Forests, India. There is no settlement in the national park and grazing in the area has been banned since 1983. The park is open only for 4 to 5 months during summer from June to October.[1]

Research nursery and seed bank

A research nursery and seed/rhizome/tuber bank for propagating rare plants and valuable medicinal herbs has been created at Musadhar near the entrance of the site. Rare and valuable medicinal plants are the subject of special programs. These include Aconitum heterophyllum, A. falconeri, Arnebia benthamii, Dactylorhiza hatagirea, Gymnadenia orchides, Megacarpaea polyandra, Picrorhiza kurrooa, Podophyllum hexandrum and Taxus wallichiana. Research plots have been set up to determine the best way to control the spread of the tall Himalayan knotweed Polygonum polystachium without damaging other plants or the surface of the soil. A first annual survey was conducted in 2004 and will be repeated annually.

See also

• Silent Valley National Park
• Yumthang Valley of Flowers in Sikkim
• Lakshman Ganga River
• Pushpawati
  River

References

1. ^
   ISBN 9788178353838
   .
2. ^
   ISBN 9780203380307
   .
3. ^ ^{a b c d} N. Ulysses and Tabish, Thingnam Girija. "Trek to Valley of Flowers". Flowers of India. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
4. ^ "World Conservation Monitoring Centre". Archived from the original on 10 July 1997. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
5. ^ Colonel Frank Smythe – Francis Sydney Smythe Archived 30 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine, 1900–1949
6. ^ "Valley of Flowers". sikhnet.com. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
7. ^ ^{a b} Chandra Prakash Kala. "How Valley of Flowers got World Heritage Site tag". Down to Earth. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
8. ^ Chandra Prakash Kala. "Paradise under fire". Down to Earth. Retrieved 15 June 2002.
9. ^ Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
10. ^ ^{a b} Valley of Flowers, Article by Asif N Khan in Hornbill April–June 2015 P.p. 10-15, Bombay Natural History Society.
11. ^ "Valley of Flowers National Park". Sanctuary Asia Magazine. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
12. ^ "ET Recommendations: 5 best places to enjoy monsoon, movie to watch, gadget to buy". The Times of India. 22 July 2012. Archived from the original on 21 February 2013. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
13. ^ Lamba, B. 1987. Status survey report of fauna: Nanda Devi National Park. Records of the Zoological. Survey of India Occasional Paper No. 103. 50 pp
14. ISBN 9780893892128
    . valley of flowers.
15. ^ Kala, CP 1998. Ecology and Conservation of Alpine Meadows in the Valley of Flowers National Park, Garhwal Himalaya. Forest Research Institute, Dehradun
16. ^ ^{a b} "Valley of Flowers: World Heritage Site" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
17. ^ Kala, C.P. 2004. Pastoralism, plant conservation, and conflicts on proliferation of Himalayan knotweed in high altitude protected areas of the Western Himalaya, India. Biodiversity and Conservation, 13 (5): 985–995.
18. S2CID 84896241
    .
19. ^ Kala, C.P. (2005) Indigenous uses, population density, and conservation of threatened medicinal plants in protected areas of the Indian Himalayas. Conservation Biology, 19 (2): 368–378.
20. ^ Kala, C.P. (2005). "The Valley of Flowers; A newly declared World Heritage Site" (PDF). Current Science. 89 (6): 919–920. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
21. ^ Kala, C.P. 2004. The Valley of Flowers; Myth and Reality. International Book Distributors, Dehradun, India
22. ^ ^{a b} Kala, C.P. (2004) Distribution pattern and conservation status of mammals and birds in the Valley of Flowers National Park and its vicinity, Uttaranchal. Himalayan Biosphere Reserves, 6: 91–102

Further reading

• K. R. Keshava Murthy, 2011. Floral Gallery of Himalayan Valley of Flowers and Adjacent Areas, published by the author,
  ISBN 9788184654387
• Gurudwara Shri Hemkund Sahib
• K R Keshava Murthy, 2020. Second edition- (Revised and enlarged) Floral Gallery of Himalayan Valley of Flowers and Adjacent Areas, published by Walkin the woods. Dehradun.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Valley of Flowers National Park.

• Official UNESCO website entry
• United Nations Environment Programme