Paper Title
Observations on Vegetative and Floral Characters of Madhuca Indica GMEL

Abstract
Observations were conducted to reveal the vegetative and floral characters in Madhuca indica Gmel in the School of Forestry and Environment, Sam Higgonbottom Intitute of Agriculture, Technology and Science, Allahabad situated at 250 28′N latitude and 810 55′E longitude. The investigation was carried out for two consecutive years, following the Materials and Methods given by Cruden (1977), Panse and Sukhatme (1978) and Reddi and Janaki Bhai (1981). Analysis of variance for the characters under observation revealed significant differences for leaf bud swell, leaf bud burst, leafing, senescence, flower bud development stages, anthesis timing, and anther dehiscence. From the present observations, it is concluded that vegetative characters of Madhuca indica took 47.73 days from initiation of leaf bud swell to completion of leafing. The emergence of new leaves and their development continued up to second week of May. Falling of first and last leaf was observed on third week of February and first week of April respectively. Synchronous flowering of Madhuca indica Gmel. started during first week of March and ends towards first week of May with a peak period of flowering from last week of March to second week of April. Flower bud development took 32.55 to 34.18 days to anthesis. Anthesis and anther dehiscence took place during morning hours after the onset of Sun. The maximum anthesis and anther dehiscence were observed between 06:30 to 07:30 a.m. and 07:00 to 08:00 a.m. respectively.