NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 6 Sundarbans: Home of the Mangroves — Write

Book page 99 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

What do you find in the mangrove forest? List any three.

Answer

Three easy ones: mangrove trees with their strange roots, the Royal Bengal Tiger, and thick sticky mud with creeks of salty water running through it.

Look at the big picture on page 100 and list what is actually shown there.

What you find	What it looks like in the picture
Mangrove trees	Trees standing on arching roots, with a mass of pale roots below the leaves
Breathing roots	Thin, pencil-like sticks poking up out of the water — the ones Shanti asked about
Stilt roots	Curved roots that carry the trunk up above the mud, like legs
Royal Bengal Tiger	Standing among the roots on the left
Spotted deer	On the right, under the trees
Monkey	Sitting on a branch above the deer
Crocodile	Lying on the mud and roots at the bottom left
Birds	A kingfisher on the roots and a white egret standing in the shallow water
Salty creeks and mud	The wide brown-green water the boat is moving through
People in a boat	A boatman rowing, with a mask on the back of his head, and visitors in life jackets

Any three, for example — mangrove trees with breathing roots, the Royal Bengal Tiger, crabs, fish and crocodiles in the salty creeks

Why a mangrove forest looks so odd: the tide comes in and goes out twice a day. Half the day this forest is standing in water; the other half it is standing in mud. No ordinary tree could live like that. Everything you see there is built for that one hard job.

The name: The Sundarbans are said to be named after the Sundari tree, a mangrove that grows there. Sundar means beautiful, and ban means forest.

Q2.

What do you think makes this place different from other forests?

Answer

Its water is salty, its floor is soft mud instead of firm soil, and the sea comes in and goes out of it twice every day. No other kind of forest lives like that.

	An ordinary forest	A mangrove forest like the Sundarbans
Where it grows	On dry land	Where the river Ganga meets the sea
The water	Fresh, from rain and streams	Salty — sea water mixed with river water
The ground	Firm soil	Deep, soft, sticky mud with no air in it
The tide	No tide	Flooded and drained twice a day by the tide
The roots	Under the ground, out of sight	Above the ground — stilt roots and breathing roots you can see
Getting about	On foot, along paths	By boat, along creeks
What lives there	Land animals and birds	Land and water animals together — tiger, deer, crocodile, crab, mudskipper fish

Why ordinary trees cannot grow here: two reasons. First, salt. Salty water pulls water out of a plant instead of feeding it, so most plants dry up and die. Mangroves can block the salt at their roots, or push it out through their leaves. Second, air. Roots need air, and thick sea mud has almost none in it — so mangroves grow special roots that stick up above the mud and breathe.

A record worth remembering: The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It is shared between India and Bangladesh, and it is the only mangrove forest anywhere with tigers living in it.

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