Abstract
The major commercial crops grown/indigenous to India are cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.), coconut (Cocos nucifera L.), coffee (Coffea arabica L.), rubber [Hevea brasiliensis (Willd. ex A. Juss.) Müll. Arg.], sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.), tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze), and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.). Cocos is a monotypic genus, while Theobroma cacao and Hevea brasiliensis are of South American origin. The Northeast India is the major area of variability of cultivated tea (Wheatherstone 1992). Camellia assamica (Masters) Wight (Assam type) and C. assamica ssp. lasiocalyx (Planch ex. Watt.) Wight, which have gone through outcrossing with a non-tea-producing species C. irrawadiensis Barua, have generated significant amount of natural variability in primary gene pool. Besides, several other taxa, Camellia caudata Wallich, C. irrawadiensis, C. taliensis Melchior, C. kissi Wallich, and C. drupifera Lour, and other related genera, such as Eurya, Pyrenaria, Schima, and Gordonia, are also found in the forests of Northeast India (Singh 1999). Eurya japonica, sometimes placed in Theaceae and used as substitute of tea in China, is also available in these areas and the Western Ghats. In coffee, wild-related species, Coffea bengalensis and C. fragrans, are found in the northeast region and the Southern India, and C. jenkinsii and C. khasiana are endemic to the Khasi and Jaintia hills in the northeast region. Coffea travancorensis, related to C. fragrans and C. crassifolia, is localized in the Western Ghats.
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Singh, A.K. (2017). Commercial Crops. In: Wild Relatives of Cultivated Plants in India . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5116-6_12
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