Industry and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra (left) releases researcher and senior Indian Forest Service officer Ajay Mahapatra's book Aquatic Plants of Eastern India: A Pictorial Guide in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

Mahapatra has co-authored the book with Asok Biswal, a research associate at Regional Plant Resource Centre. The book describes 206 aquatic vascular plants found in the coast and water bodies of Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

The National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has published the book with the aim to popularise aquatic plants among the people of the region. Mahapatra, the managing director of the Odisha Forest Development Corporation Limited, said: "Aquatic plants of our coast might be behind the mass nesting of the turtles near Gahirmatha and river mouths of Devi and Rushikulya."

With 300 pictures, the book provides glimpses of floral diversity from rivers, dams, reservoirs, creeks, streams and waterfalls from 34 districts of these five states. Unveiling the book, Mishra said: "Odisha has a stock of many rare plants with medicinal and therapeutic use. The industries must understand this fact and work to conserve the regional biodiversity."

National Biodiversity Board chairman and additional secretary in the ministry of environment and forests, Hem Pandey said: "Odisha is a storehouse of nature's bounty and rare biodiversity and there should be enough effort to protect it."

Nalco chairman-cum-managing director Tapan Kumar Chand said his company would play an active role in working on more nature-based projects in the future.

Text by Bibhuti Barik,picture by Ashwinee Pati