TROPICAL MONSOON NATURAL VEGETATION

The natural vegetation of tropical monsoon lands depends on the amount of summer rainfall. The monsoon lands with three distinct seasons, cold, hot and rainy, exert great influence on the appearance of the vegetation. Trees have to be fairly tolerant of local physical and climatic conditions to survive. They grow rapidly in the rainy season, shed their leaves during the hot dry season and remain comparatively inactive in the cool season. Trees are normally deciduous since they shed their leaves during hot dry season tn withstand excessive transpiration. The overall vegetation varies from dense tropical evergreen vegetation to thorny scrubland, due to differences in precipitation in different parts of the monsoon lands. Where the rainfall is heavy, e.g. Southern Burma, peninsular India, northern Australia and coastal regions with a tropical marine climate, the resultant vegetation is forest. The forests are more open and less luxuriant than the equatorial forest with far fewer species. The less dense forest allows more sunlight to reach the ground, resulting in denser undergrowth. Bamboo thickets which predominate in regions of intermediate rainfall often grow to great heights.