Forwarding again for any assistance in the matter please. Some earlier relevant feedback:
“This is not pertaining to plants or botany, but, I made an accidental discovery last year. The red weaving ants are good predators of mosquitoes provided, the entry or exit point from the breeding area is narrow. I observed that the ants had covered all the exit points from the vent pipe of my septic tank and no sooner a mosquito tried to either enter the vent hole or exit, it was caught by alert ants and promptly dismembered. I stood on the spot for 30 minutes and hardly a couple of them escaped the clutches. Regards. Yazdy Palia.” ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: sid <sikd...@gmail.com> Date: 18 April 2011 14:59 Subject: [efloraofindia:67447] project to rid of mosquitoes with a plant and animal based design system To: efloraofindia <indiantreepix@googlegroups.com> My housing society in suburban Pune has taken up a project to get rid of mosquitoes from our neighbourhood through natural means. We got a lot of our ideas from this article: http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2009/07/natures-mosquito-control.html - which involves a design system involving plants and animals. We had the following questions: 1. What is the Citronella macronata tree? The article mentions this is a tree that can be planted as a hedge. Is it found in India? 2. The citronella compound has also been bred into the “lemon geranium” which exudes the same scent (as Citronella Macronata) and is used to repel mosquitoes at the herb layer. Is “lemon geranium” the same as Citronella grass? 3. Is 'catnip' native? Where can we find it? Catnip extract (and so is Rosemary extract) is a good mosquito repellent. 4. Bullrush and Cattail attract dragonfly that eat mosquitoes - what are these and where can I find them? 5. The Chinese have been using Artemisia annua (a.k.a. sweet wormwood) to cure fevers for centuries. Is this available? And if someone can help with this: Are there places around Pune where one could get mass quantities (and cheap) of lemon grass, citronella (grass) and vetiver for planting? Thank you very much Regards Siddartha 3. -- With regards, J.M.Garg (jmga...@gmail.com) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna' The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a *thousand species* & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg. You can also use them for free as per Creative Commons license attached with each image. For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group: http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix (more than 1680 members & 75,000 messages on 31/7/11) or Efloraofindia website: https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/ (with a species database of around 5000 species)
