I know such discussions will crop up when persons from so many fields
interact. The main aim of this group, I think is to encourage more and more
people to look at plants, know about their uses, local names, and ultimately
it would be a big step towards environmental management.
I have been practicing taxonomy for last 40 years, but the madness
about plants started only after I joined this group. We the taxonomists are
often happy to pick up the local flora and identify the plants, not
realising that a few related species must have cropped in into the area
after that local flora was published. Only after joining this group I came
to know about plants which I thought something else from Maheshwari's Flora
of Delhi. This I know must have also been the experience of other
colleagues. Sometimes I am amazed by the critical eye of Tabish ji, Garg ji
and others not professional taxonomists.
I know and many others must be feeling how useful the FlowersofIndia
website is for identification. We are all learning and let us encourage
others.
All of us know Poaceae and Cyperaceae are difficult to identify, but once
one of us has spent time on identification, there are always some physical
markers to remember identification of that grass or sedge. When we identify
hundreds of plants (including grasses and sedges) in our ecology/taxonomy
classes, or herbarium identification, we seldom look for books. If these
photographs go to our websites, it would help in awareness about grasses and
sedges.
My personal request! Let us not discourage members from taking photos
of grasses and sedges, rather encourage them and urge them to include shots
of auricles and ligules, closeup of spikelets. The digital photography
today allows clearer view than our naked eyes.
Today herbaria are discouraging taxonomists from handling of actual
specimens, and rather use their virtual herbaria. We should be happy that we
are using photgraphs of live plants with everything preserved.
Good photography for all
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College
University of Delhi, Delhi
India
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aparna Watve" <[email protected]>
To: "Vijayasankar Raman" <[email protected]>
Cc: "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]>; "Nayan Singh"
<[email protected]>; "indiantreepix"
<[email protected]>; "grassman" <[email protected]>;
"Avinash dada" <[email protected]>; "Rani Bhagat"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:18 PM
Subject: [indiantreepix:22157] Re: Grass for id 031109jm2
>
> Dear all,
> As a short answer to the earlier mails, - I stand by what I said in
> spite of the issues Garg ji has raised. Some reasons have already
> been pointed out by Vijay ji.
>
> Before I proceed to give a long answer, I would like to ask all here
> some questions,
> a. What is the accuracy of identification that we are aiming for?
> My answer -for every plant I want a "scientifically accurate"
> identification.
>
> b. What is the reason for scientific accuracy?
> Because I see that handbooks and electronic databases, are now very
> commonly being used for ecological surveys, environment impact
> assessments, teaching, making books, making environment education
> material, species distribution mapping, natural resource management
> planning, ( For each of this- I can give an example from real life
> where it was done). All this work requires scientific accuracy of
> identification. Even many of the laymen (-a word I dont like to use)
> are experts in their own field where they use this knowledge, for
> example ayurvedic doctors who want to know plants to be used in
> medicine.
>
> c. Can we guarantee scientific accuracy of identification from a photo?
> But before that, what kind of photo? - a simple reporting picture (as
> are most on this mailing list) lacks most characters of id. I always
> try to point out what more is required and some like Dr. Satish Phadke
> are taking more and more pics with necessary key characters.
>
> For the tricky families, if a person can take a picture showing all
> necessary characters for the identification it will be possible to id
> even grasses,sedges, eriocaulons clearly. But with the characters in
> question, it will mean not only macro photos, but scanning electron
> micrographs for characters of nut. How many can do this?
>
> It is true that an expert, with his vast field knowledge can take one
> look at a specimen and tell you what it is. Rani and Anilkumar (I know
> both of them personally) on this group who know grasses well can do
> it, . They have certain field characters in their mind by which they
> do it, and they will turn out to be correct in most cases. But if
> others try to use that photo for more identifications from similar
> looking plants, they might get it wrong.
>
> Dr. S. R. Yadav, of Kolhapur university and his PHD students working
> on Poaceae of Maharashtra have developed an EXCELLENT set of
> photographs of grass genera, from which identification is easy and
> ACCURATE. I do hope they publish it soon. If one can get pictures like
> that, then I will not mind id from digital photos.
>
> for the rest of garg ji's points-
>
>> We can't wait for the perfect things (which never will in any case) to
>> happen.
> - It is not perfection but ACCURACY being discussed. Even a bad photo
> of a tiger is enough for id. But with the greatest photo of flowering
> sedge it still is difficult to accurately distinguish Pycreas and
> Cyperus.
>
>> Our Floras only bulky technical details, hardly readable to a laymen.
> Well I agree only partially to this, some floras of present are not
> even good enough for a trained experienced taxonomist to use. But
> please remember that floras were and will be written for those trained
> in the subject. If a person trains him/herself to understand the
> subject (like many notable examples on this group) they will follow it
> too.
> BTW, any technical subject book is going to be difficult to follow for
> a person not from the background. I can hardly hope to easily
> understand medical textbooks, or computer software books, though I
> would love to diagnose my own sickness and write my own software
> programmes.
>
>>Or we simply stop photographing or knowing about Poaceae, Cyperaceae etc.
> Well this is subjective. Those who want, can continue to do it as it
> is, (and I attach the taxonomist's warning) or do it after reading up
> technical literature on identification of these species and try and
> get as many characters in the photo as possible (in that case my
> warnings become little diluted, depending on the nature of the
> photograph....)
>
> Also as I have worded the warning, - it says "confirm" the
> identification. A "confirmed identification" is where there is no
> doubt remaining about the identity of the species in that photograph.
> A simple identification is where there remains a chance that the
> identification is wrong, and hence use of that identification is at
> the person's own risk. The photo and subsequent comments on it can
> give pointers, indications, as I usually try to give (for less complex
> families), if I am not sure about identification based on the photo
> alone.
>
> Perhaps you should also put this subject on the mailing list of Indian
> Association of Angiosperm Taxonomists. It will be most interesting to
> hear their views.
>
> Regards
> Aparna
>
> >
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