Excellent view of the high altitude grassland and amazing shola forest! Thanks Anurag for showing us the beauty and wealth of W.Ghats through your lenses. I appreciate your passion and extensive explorations. Keep up the enthusiasm!
Vijay ------------------------------------------------------------------- Vijayasankar Raman, Ph.D. Research Scientist National Center for Natural Products Research University of Mississippi, MS, USA On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Anurag Sharma <[email protected]> wrote: > > <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8QjGrPm6Q_Q/VKLzqHyCDPI/AAAAAAAAAqI/MGn50y9WWDc/s1600/Sholas.jpg> > > I had restricted to myself to clicking photographs of ornamental plants > and botanical garden trees etc. until June this year when one of my good > friends suggested that I start visiting the forests nearby Bangalore. Soon > after this came a visit to Coorg where unfortunately I did not get to see > much due to heavy rains in the area. However, a month later, while talking > to a fellow member on India Flora (Facebook) I discovered that he was the > deputy conservator of forests in the Chikamagalur area of Western Ghats. He > cordially invited me to Chikamagalur and even offered to let my friends and > me use his car to travel around. > > On the first day, while exploring the beautiful and scenic ghat section, a > car pulled up and a man stepped out and asked us what we were doing. We > told him that we were looking for plants, butterflies, amphibians and > odonates to which he replied that he owned land in the mountains and gave > us permission to enter the area. We visited his estate and discovered to > our joy that his 'estate' actually consisted of grasslands and forests! We > climbed into the mountains and found a nice spot to relax and enjoy the > serenity of nature. It was here that the attached photo was taken, which > perfectly describes the setting of the place where we spent the next hour > at. Endless grasslands, slowly descending clouds and tens of thousands of > *Strobilanthes* sp. forming the bulk of the mountain slopes, this > overwhelming feeling that nature's beauty gave us caused such a longing to > revisit the Western Ghats that two days later while sitting in a Chemistry > class in college, my friend and I decided that come what may, we would > attempt to visit some part of the Western Ghats each and every month! > > This place and the memory that this photo evokes is definitely one of the > reasons that drives me to continue exploring forests as much as I can. I > have only just started out, but hopefully will discover many other places > that will only serve to increase my love for nature and plants! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "efloraofindia" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
