To study the impact of
vehicular pollution on the road-side vegetation, four sites in the eastern Uttar Pradesh of India
with varying
vehicular density were selected. Index of
dominance of five plant species
Ageratum houstonianum Mill.,
Argemone mexicana Linn.,
Rumex dentatus Linn.,
Salvia plebeja R. Br. and
Solanum nigrum Linn. were studied at six intervals till 250 m perpendicular to the road at all the four sites. An attempt has been made to correlate the index of dominance of the species with the load of vehicular pollution. Three species,
A. houstonianum, S. plebeja and
S. nigrum, showed positive correlation with respect to the increasing distance from the road, showing its susceptibility for the pollution whereas
A. mexicana and
R. dentatus showed positive correlation with the increase in pollution load. Thus,
A. mexicana and
R. dentatus were advocated to be bio-indicators of vehicular pollution.