ABSTRACT

Mangroves-the intertidal forest-struggle every moment against hungry tides as they straddle at the interface zone of the land and the sea. Despite putting as much as effort relentlessly to sustain in fragility, mangroves, however, never deny of displaying their beauty that may be expressed in a line of the poetic verse, ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep’ – to keep everyone mesmerized. As evergreen as they look pristine, mangroves form a definite stand of the sheltered coastal vegetation in the tropical regions of the world. This intertidal forest continues to sacrifice in protecting people living in such fragile zones against frequent natural calamities. They bathe twice a day with water of tidal rise and expose to sunlight – a rare occurrence never seen in any vegetation of the planet Earth. Everybody knows roots of a plant to enter into earth and stem to air, but mangroves ignore the common rule, deviating the usual phenomena. Here are some roots of mangroves growing above the ground against gravitation, inhaling air with their fellow stem. Common passers-by or sailors, whosoever spots them, never know which they are, but get attracted with their staring view towards the sky with a deep sense of concentration. They are breathing roots, Pneumatophore, which becomes active inhaling oxygen to continue physiology of the body for survival. Seeds germinate in soil, grow, enlarge, but who knows seeds to grow while being attached with mother plant. Mangroves have the answer. Vivipary – a method of giving birth – mangroves adapt to nurture their progeny into their safe custody unless they are ready to fight against hungry tides and impairing salinity. In such beautiful forests, birds roost the canopy to twitter, monkeys to eat fruits, deer to graze on ground, crabs to hide into hole and many others to stay here to make a complete sphere of an abode at the edge of the land. However, it is a question of interest why they are so. Are they pushed away by their fellow land communities to be here or do they like to be

here to behold the beauty of sea? Or they thought much before that the latest species – human beings – would continue their torture upon them – a speechless life. So they thought of growing near to the sea, escaping human savagery. Probably, nobody knows why they are here.