Myristica swamps & sacred groves

Myristica swamps are evergreen forests that grow in waterlogged valley bottoms, dominated by trees of the nutmeg family. Their looping knee roots and stilt roots help them breathe in the wet soil. They are among the most ancient forest types in India and are now rare.

Uttara Kannada has over a hundred recorded swamps. An IISc study of five of them, at Kathalekan, Malemane, Torme, Halsolli and Mundigethagu in the Honavar and Siddapur taluks, recorded 64 tree species, 34 of them endemic to the Western Ghats. The wild nutmegs Gymnacranthera canarica and Myristica fatua var. magnifica grew in all five.

The same swamps held 15 mammals including the lion-tailed macaque, 59 birds, 22 reptiles, 29 amphibians, 16 fish, 109 butterflies and 6 damselflies. Malabar tree nymph butterflies gather in two of them.

Across Uttara Kannada, villages traditionally protected patches of forest called kans or devarakadu, dedicated to a deity. These groves kept old trees, springs and wildlife safe for generations. In parts of Siddapur taluk their share of the land fell from about 6% to 0.3% over the last century.

Close to Honavar, the grove at Karikan beside the Karikanamma (Karikan Parameshwari) temple holds a tall stand of Dipterocarpus indicus. Ecologists Subash Chandran and Madhav Gadgil name Karikan and Kathalekan as the two notable refuges of this Endangered tree in Uttara Kannada. Karikan now lies inside a reserve forest.