Department of Botany

About Department of Botany

The Department of Botany, Panjab University was established in 1919 at Lahore. It shifted to Chandigarh in 1960 from Khalsa College, Amritsar where it was housed temporarily after partition of the country in 1947 with Prof. P.N. Mehra as the Head of the Department. The department has grown into a well-recognized Centre for higher learning and research in structural, functional and evolutionary aspects of Plants. In fact, this is the only Botany Department in the country, which has the necessary expertise to attend to all plant groups. While the contributions have been tremendous in the understanding of fundamentals of Plant Sciences, the department has also kept pace with the changing national priorities. Some of the major areas of research in the department are: improvement and propagation of economically important plants (orchids, bamboos, ferns, trees); mushroom cultivation; identification of eco-friendly herbicides and pesticides; evaluation and conservation of plant biodiversity; and importance of microbes in human welfare. The department attracts students for Undergraduate and Postgraduate studies and Doctoral research from within and outside the country. In addition to teaching through modern techniques, seminars, symposia, workshops, invited lectures and botanical excursions are an integral part of academic programme of the department.

Library
The department has a well-stocked Library with nearly 6,444 books and over 21 regular scientific journals. A Central Instrumentation Lab, with two technical experts for maintenance, caters to the research needs of the faculty and the students.

Herbarium and Museum
The department also houses an internationally recognized Herbarium (abbreviated as PAN) and a Museum. National and foreign research workers consult the Herbarium with a rich collection of Bryophytes, Ferns, Gymnosperms and Angiosperms and it also provides exchangeable loan facility of specimens. Algal and Fungal Herbarium is an added attraction of the department.

The following grants have been received by the Department:
Recently, the department has been sanctioned BSR fellowships under UGC-SAP (DRS) programme. Additionally, the UGC sanctions funds for infrastructural development to the department from time to time. Besides this, many projects are funded by DST, MoEF, UGC, CSIR and a multinational company.

Botanical Gardens
The Department also has the "P.N. Mehra Botanical Gardens", spread over 16 acres of land and named after its founder. It is one of the better known botanical gardens attached to a university of the country. Special attractions in the garden for the visitors are the Arboretum with nearly 225 species of trees; the water garden consisting of lily-ponds and vegetated with species of Nelumbium and Nymphaea. The Cactus-House has more than 100 species of cacti while the Orchid-House has amazingly beautiful orchids collected from different parts of India. In the Fern-House grow nearly 50 species of ferns and fern allies. Of considerable botanical interest is the Bambusetum with over two dozen rare species of bamboos collected and grown during the last 40 years. Several interesting succulent plants collected from different parts of the country further contribute to the beauty of the garden. In order to grow plants under controlled conditions the garden has an automated Greenhouse. There is a well-maintained nursery where plants are raised, multiplied, acclimatized and then transplanted. The botanical garden, besides serving as the repository of the source material for botanical studies, is also geared to cater to the dire need of conserving and enriching plant bio-diversity through exchange of plant and seeds.