Habitats
The Guindy National Park, Raj Bhavan and IIT-Madras habitat complex has historically enjoyed a certain degree of protection and has continued to support some of the last remnants of the natural habitats that typify the natural range of plant and animal biodiversity of the Coromandel-Circar coastal plains in the northeastern Tamil Nadu. The ecosystem consists of the rare tropical dry evergreen scrub and thorn forests receiving about 1200 mm of rainfall annually. This vegetation has been reclassified as the Albizia amara Boiv. community. The region’s physiognomy occurs as discontinuous or dense scrub-woodlands and thickets, containing species such as introduced Acacia planifrons, Clausena dentata shrubs, palmyrah palm (Borassus flabellifer), Randia dumetorum, Randia malabarica, Carissa spinarum, Acacia chundra, exotic cactus Cereus peruviana and Glycosmis mauritiana.
The park has a tropical dissymmetric climate. The mean annual temperatures are 32.9 °C (maximum) and 24.3 °C (minimum). Rainfall ranges from 522 to 2,135 mm, with an average annual rainfall of 1,215 mm. The summer season in April and May determines the peculiar vegetation of the Coromandel-Circar coast. Between June and December, wet season prevails, with dry season occurring between January and March. The area also has a cleared meadow called Polo Field measuring about 230 × 160 m. The park also has a lake known as the 'Tangal Eri'.
The park is protected by a perimeter wall for a length of 9.5 km. There is an extensive network of roads and trails. The road network covers about 14 km within the park. The park has two large tanks, namely, Kathan Kollai (KK Tank) and Appalam Kolam (AK Tank), in addition to two ponds, which usually dry up during summer. The presence of the park and the surrounding green areas resulted in the byname, the green lungs of Chennai, for the Adyar–Guindy area.
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