Dust loadings on some common plants near Lucknow City

Abstract

Eight plant species—Acacia melanoxylon, Bauhinia malabarica, Bougainvillea glabra, Calotropis procera, Catharanthus roseus, Eucalyptus globulus, Ipomoea fistulosa and Peltophorum pterocarpum—were collected from a newly established suburb colony of Lucknow city, where the major pollutant is dust, to study cleansing efficiency of the plant canopy and also to establish the correlation between the leaf morphological characteristics and their dust trapping potential. The dust load, in milligrams per square centimetre of leaf surface, was measured and related to foliar epidermal and cuticular characteristics, and morphological features.