Session to know more about plants held

Vadodara: The Vadodara chapter of Vigyan Parishad and Community Science Centre (CSC), Vadodara, jointly organized a seminar titled ‘Know more about plants ’. Professor Arun Arya, former head of M S University’s Department of Botany, said more indigenous trees should be grown. “Dried trees should not be painted because the colours are toxic.

Instead, they should be cut and more beautiful flowering and fruiting trees should be grown,” he said. Keynote speaker Dr Daksha P Bhatt highlighted how sick building syndrome is caused by newly painted rooms and various colours and volatile compounds are emitted from thinners and adhesives. Talking about plants suitable for pollution-control, she said that many plants like money plants, rubber plant, dracaena and senciviera (mother-in -law’s tongue ) are beautiful and also absorb toxic volatiles like benzene and formaldehyde.

Dr Jitendra Gavali, director of CSC, talked about heritage and historical plants apart from ‘saptparni’, kadamba and ‘parijat’ trees. Others who attended the session included Dr M H Mehta; Reena Raj Kashyap; Dr R B Lal, president of Vigyan Parishad; Anil Satpathy; and Dr D Brahmaiyah from Central Pollution Control Board..