Balaghat Ranges are eastern spur of Western Ghats of India lie in between 18°47'40.26" - 18°32'29.28"N latitude and 75°20'26.90" - 76°48'56.18"E longitude, spread in Ahmednagar, Beed, Latur, Osmanabad and Solapur districts of the Maharashtra State of India in the basins of river Manjra and its tributaries Bori, Lendi, Manyad, Terna and Tiru. Balaghat occupies an area of about 18,111.34 Km² (Fig. 1). The terrain of Balaghat shows hills and hillocks of varying heights (450 to 850 m), which support unique tropical dry deciduous forests, open scrub jungles and vast grasslands. The weather in general is dry and said to be moderately extreme. An annual temperature ranges between 27.7^oC - 42^oC and the relative humidity is extremely low (35-50%) for major part of the year while it is highest (75%) during the monsoon season (June-October). The average annual rainfall is about 729 mm mainly from June to October.

Figure 1.  

Location map of Balaghat Ranges of Maharashtra (India).

First of all a list of taxa of the family Fabaceae of the Balaghat Ranges was prepared by referring to all available literature and specimens deposited in various herbaria. After that, field-visits of 1-3 days duration were undertaken to nooks and corners of Balaghat Ranges for plant collection. During the field visits, information on habit, habitat, phenological data, GPS data and present status were gathered. Three specimens were collected of each species and prepared voucher specimens following standard herbarium techniques (Rao and Sharma 1990). The specimens are deposited in the herbarium of Walchand College, Solapur, Maharashtra (WACS). Identification of taxa was confirmed with the help of available literature such as Cooke (1958), Babu et al. (1987), Sanjappa (1995), Almeida (1998), Naik (1998), Kothari (2000), Lakshminarasimhan (2001), Tomooka et al. (2002a), Tomooka et al. (2002b), Dave (2004), Chaudhary and Khan (2005), Ansari (2008), Jabbar et al. (2010), Toomoka et al. (2011) and Aitawade et al. (2012). Doubtful and interesting identifications were confirmed by their direct comparison with authentically identified specimens deposited in various herbaria such as Herbarium of Botanical survey of India, Pune (BSI); Blatter Herbarium, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai (BLAT) and BAMU Herbarium, Aurangabad (BAMUA). The botanical name of the taxa have been verified with International Plant Name Index (IPNI). The genera, species and infraspecific taxa are alphabetically arranged in the present paper. Some important plants are featured in photographs (Figs 2, 3, 4, 5).

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Figure 2.

Habitus of some important plants in situ.

a: Abrus precatorius L.  
b: Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub. var. monosperma  
c: Cajanus platycarpus (Benth.) van der Maesen  
d: Crotalaria filipes Benth.  
e: Pterocarpus marsupium Roxb.  
f: Vigna indica Dixit et al.  

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b

c

d

e

f

Figure 3.

Habitus of some important plants in situ.

a: Aeschynomene americana L.  
b: Alysicarpus longifolius Wight & Arn.  
c: Alysicarpus pubescens Law var. vasavadae (Hemadri) Sanjappa  
d: Crotalaria leptostachya Benth.  
e: Crotalaria notonii Wight & Arn.  
f: Crotalaria orixensis Willd.  

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c

d

e

f

Figure 4.

Habitus of some important plants in situ.

a: Crotalaria ramosissima Roxb.  
b: Erythrina suberosa Roxb.  
c: Indigofera astragalina DC.  
d: Indigofera glandulosa Wendl. var. glandulosa  
e: Indigofera glandulosa Wendl. var. sykesii Griff. ex Baker  
f: Mucuna minima Haines  

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Figure 5.

Habitus of some important plants in situ.

a: Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC.  
b: Rhynchosia rothii Benth. ex Ait.