Research Journal of Recent Sciences ________________________________________________ ISSN 2277 - 2502 Vol. 1(ISC-2011), 329-332 (2012) Res.J.Recent.Sci. Short Communication Foliar Response of Two Species of Cassia to Heavy Air Pollution Load at Indore City, India Tiwari Shweta Department of Botany P.M.B. Gujarati Science College, Indore, INDIA Available online at: www.isca.in (Received 18th November 2011, revised 31st December 2011, accepted 24th January 2012) Abstract Plants are constantly exposed to air, they absorb, accumulate and integrate pollutants confining on their foliar surfaces and show specific response too. The use of plants as monitors of air pollution has long been established, as plants are the initial acceptors of air pollution. Present study was carried out to find out the effect of air pollutants on morphology, physiology and biochemistry of Cassia siamea Lamk. and Cassia Glauca Lamk growing at two different sites of Indore city viz. Scheme No. 78 (Site-I), considered as Low Polluted Area (LPA), in this area there is very low traffic frequency and industries are absent and MR10 (Site-II) which is Major Road No. 10 of Indore city. There are large number of Industries and heavy traffic frequency in this area, so it is considered as a polluted area. The two species growing at polluted site showed reduction in size of leaf, number of stomata and leaf biomass. Variations in biochemical parameters like chlorophyll in the leaves were found to be pollution load dependent. Keywords: Ethno air pollution, low polluted area (LPA), heavy polluted area (HPA), foliar morphology. References 1. Rani Mamta, Pal Naresh and Sharma R.K., Effect of railway engines emission on the micro morphology of some field plants, Journal of Environmental Biology, 27 (2), 373-376 (2006) 2. Jain A. and Sreelatha C., Morphological studies of leaves of Azadirachta Indica, Cassia siamea and Dalbergia sissoo as affected by dust, J. Bot. Soc. Univ. Sagar, 41, 1-4 (2006) 3. Gupta M.C. and Ghouse A.K.M., The effects of coal smoke pollution on the leaf epidermal architecture in solanum melongena L. Variety pusa people long, Environmental pollution Ser. A., (4), 315-21, (1986) 4. Salgare S.A. and throat V.B., Effect of auto - exhaust pollution at Andheri (west) Bombay on the micro morphology of some tress, Journal of Ecobiology, 2 (4), 267-272 (1990) 5. Tiwari S., Syed K., Sikka J. and Joshi O. P., Air pollution induced changes in foliar morphology of two species of Cassia at Indore city, Journal of Environmental Research and Development 2 (3), (2008) 6. Datta S.C. and Sinharoy S., Leaf surface effects of environmental pollution of putraanjiva ruxburghii, Current Science, 56 (23), (1987) 7. Gunamani T., Guruswamy R. and Saminathan., Effect of dust pollution on the dorsal appendages and anatomy of leaves in some herbaceous plants, J. Swamy Bot. Club, 8 (3 and 4) 79-85 (1991) 8. Tripathi A.K. and Gautam M., Biochemical parameters of plants as indicators of air pollution. J. Environ. Biol, 28 (1), 127- 132 (2007) 9. Joshi P.C. and Swami A., Air pollution induced changes in the photosynthetic pigments of selected plant species, J. Environ. Biol. 30 (2), 295- 298 (2009) 10. Pawar K., Dube B., Wagela D.K. and Joshi 0. P., Lead monitoring in air, soil and foliar deposits at Indore city with special reference to automobile pollution, J.Environ.Biol, 23 (4), 417-421 (2002)