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Plant leaves act as biological filters removing large quantities of particles from the urban atmosphere.
The loss of trees in our urban areas not only intensifies the “heat island” effect from loss of shade and
evaporation, but also we loss a principal absorber of carbon dioxide and trapper of particulate pollution
as well. The present study is designed to investigate the Air Pollution Tolerance Indices (APTI) of three
dominant species Cassia siamea, Dalbergia sissoo and Delonix regia growing along road sides of Harda
in two different sites i.e. Polytechnic college area is taken as polluted site (PS) and Railway colony area
as controlled site (CS).The APTI is determined by analyzing four different biochemical parameters that is
Relative water content (RWC) of leaf, Ascorbic acid content (AA), Total chlorophyll (Tchl) of leaf and pH
of leaf extract. Ascorbic acid content of Cassia siamea growing along PS was higher than CS but RWC,
Tchl, has slightly declined in PS, whereas a notable reduction in above parameters observed in Dalbergia
siamea and Delonix regia growing in PS. The APTI of Cassia siamea of PS found to be higher than CS,
whereas APTI of Dalbergia sissoo and Delonix regia along PS are lower than CS. The seasonal variation
of APTI is also recorded in all the selected tree species. In the present study Cassia siamea expressed as
tolerant species and Dalbergia sissoo and Delonix regia as sensitive species.
Key words: Air pollution tolerance index, Polluted site, and Controlled site.