A millennium year back, the entire Indian subcontinent is the ocean of dense
forests with scattered islands of cultivation. The chronicles of Greek and
Chinese writers recorded the luxurious forests which are inaccessible to man in
the land between Himalayas and Vindyas. The economic and cultural life of the
nation centred around rivers and forests and they were held to be sacred. Indian
forest flora is very rich in composition and value. There are about 5000 species
of woody trees in our forests, of which nearly 450 are commercially valuable.
The major commercial products like creosote, methyl alcohol, lubricating and
dyeing oils and valuable drugs like sulphonomide