Natural Treasure Trove

Thailand supports a prodigious array of plants and animals. Deciduous trees she their leaves during the six-mounth dry season in the Northe. On high hills and table lands, forests of pine and maple are common. Evergreen rain forest in the South range from freshwater swamp forest to thick foliage clinging to kharst outcrops. Thailand's natural blessings include an amazing variety of fruit trees, bamboo, tropical hardwoods, and 27,000 species of flowering plants, including many varieties of orchid, the national symbol.

Animal life has adapted in various ways to the diversity of climate and terrain of Thailand. The wildlife of the North is mostly Indochinese in origin; in the South it resembles that of Malaysia and Indonesia. The Andaman coast is the habitat of four species of sea turtles. In Thailand's national parks and wildlife sanctuaries are 300 species of mammals : tigers, leopards, bears, civets, lapirs, elephants, deer and monkeys.