Pictures and text by Dr. Lalith Gunasekera
Invasive Plants Specialist, Melbourne, Australia
The Knuckles mountain range could be considered part of Sri Lanka’s heritage. The importance of the knuckles mountain range is due to several factors such as mountain peaks, crystal clear water, cloud forests and exquisite flora and fauna. The remarkable feature of this area is that most of the climatic conditions of Sri Lanka can be found within the extent of a mountain range.
All these climatic conditions can be experienced within half an hour walks through this valley. In the Knuckle mountain range a total of 1,033 flowering plants belonging to 141 families have recorded. Among them 255 are tree species while the balance consists of shrubs and herbs. Considering all these factors, UNESCO included this area under World Heritage List on 30th of July 2010.
There are two major roads to this mountain range. One is through Matale-Rattota and Riverston. The other is via Hunnasgiriya-Meemurray road. I travelled on both roads in August this year and found several emerging invasive plants within the protected areas of this wonderful place. Some of the species are at their early stages of invasion. Thus, it would be easy to manage them before they get established and invade those important areas and cost massive amount of money and effort to manage them in future.
Read full article: http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=37339
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