Dear Anil
Thanks for contributing such wise comments.
It MIGHT not be too late to salvage at least some of the pressed specimens
languishing"behind-the-scenes" at the Urusvati Institute at Naggar, Kulu Valley.
Just needs those senior enough to secure access (as I stated, I tried and
failed three times)for someone able to assess the state of the specimens.
It could be, even 80+ years later, that sufficient specimens remain in
satisfactory condition to justifysomething being done with them.
Clearly, a proportion will have been lost through rotting away and/or insect
infestation. Perhaps thevast majority but dried specimens last centuries under
suitable conditions. The 19th Century pressedspecimens from India at Kew are
still (mostly) in good condition.
And the hard, time-consuming work of IDENTIFICATION has already been done by Dr
R Stewart and others at Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Herbarium - which as
I said, holds the BEST set of pressed specimens (with good field notes) ofKulu
Valley and Lahaul specimens IN ANY HERBARIUM IN THE WORLD. Though the
nomenclature of many specimenswill have to be brought up-to-date (as members
see happening all-the-time on this site).
It would just be case of cross-referencing the collection numbers, then
mounting, labelling and storing in cabinets.The specimens at Ann Arbor are a
DUPLICATE SET of the ORIGINAL/FIRST SET collected for Roerich's Institute.
The big expense (not to mention time & effort & skill) of exploring in the
mountains of Kulu Valley & Lahaul was undertakenin the 1930s.
It really has been such a waste.
The involvement of THAKUR RUP CHAND (from Lahaul's leading family at that time)
in the collections was significant - very much Chand &Koelz specimens, rather
than just 'Koelz' specimens, not forgetting the considerable efforts of Wangyel
and Rinchen Gialtsen(who I awarded posthumous Kohli Memorial Gold Medals to in
2009 see:
https://sites.google.com/a/shpa.org.uk/main/kohli-memorial-gold-medals).
IF sufficient specimens remain, they could form the basis of a QUALITY
reference HERBARIUM for the region - all housed in agreat location.
CONSIDERABLE sums are raised by the admission charge for the Roerich Art
Gallery. Surely, some of this couldbe spent on a project to FINALLY complete
one of Roerich's ORIGINAL objectives of having a REFERENCE collection of the
region'sflora which INDIA should be PROUD OF.
I am in an ideal position to assist any projects that may materialise.
As for your photo - unfortunately it is not Cerastium cerastioides. Probably a
Stellaria.
Best Wishes,
Chris Chadwell
81 Parlaunt Road
SLOUGH
SL3 8BE
UK
www.shpa.org.uk
From: Anil Thakur <[email protected]>
To: J. M. Garg <[email protected]>
Cc: efloraofindia <[email protected]>; C CHADWELL
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 18 December 2016, 16:46
Subject: Re: Fwd: Gypsophila cerastioides in the New York Botanical Garden
What a sorry state of affairs? It is pity on the managers of science,
who mostly happen to be non scientists and bureaucrats. One who wants
to do something, has many constraints.
One will wonder that a very small state H.P. has approximately 8% of
Indian plant diversity, but no representative herbarium.
Attaching my photograph of Gypsophila cerastioides, clicked at
Churdhar in May 2015.
Regards
ANIL THAKUR
On Dec 5, 2016 6:04 PM, "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Forwarding again for validation please.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: C CHADWELL <[email protected]>
> Date: 23 November 2016 at 01:08
> Subject: Gypsophila cerastioides in the New York Botanical Garden
> To: "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]>
>
>
> Have noticed recent posts re: Dr Rawat identifying a specimen from Narkanda as
> Gypsophila cerastioides.
>
> Came across this plant growing in the rockery of the New York Botanical
> Garden, the Bronx.
>
> Do members considered it has been correctly labelled?
>
> I was on a lecture tour (mostly to North American Rock Garden Society
> chapters) which provided
> the opportunity for me to spend some time in the herbaria of the New York
> Botanical Garden (when
> speaking to the Manhattan Chapter) and Ann Arbor, Michigan (when speaking to
> the Great Lakes
> Chapter, NARGS and gave a seminar at the University about the 'Himalayan
> Travels of Walter Koelz'
> who with Thakur Rup Chand from Lahoul and their local collectors made
>extensive collections in the
> NW Himalaya including Kulu Valley, Lahoul & Ladakh in the 1930s; Koelz was a
> zoologist engaged by
> Russian NIcholas Roerich for the Urusvati Institute at Naggar, Kulu Valley
> and pressed a Kohli Memorial
> Gold Medal to the Herbarium, see:
> https://sites.google.com/a/shpa.org.uk/main/kohli-memorial-gold-medals (scroll
> down to 2011).
>
> Duplicate sets of pressed specimens collected for Roerich went to Ann Arbor
> and the New York Botanical Garden,
> where they were subsequently identified and labelled by Dr Ralph Stewart
> after he retired from being Principal of
> the Gordon College, Rawalpindi. Stewart, whilst working in Pakistan
> regularly visited the New York Botanic Garden
> Herbarium.
>
> The best quality set of pressed specimens (with good field notes) I know of
> the flora of upper Kulu Valley and
> Lahoul anywhere in the world are at Ann Arbor, Michigan - far better than Kew
> or the Natural History Museum in
> London. What a shame that the duplicate set of these lies, abandoned for 80
> years "behind-the-scenes" at the
> Urusvati Institute - no doubt many of the thousands of specimens have rotted
> away or become infested by insects.
> What a waste of such a hard-won resource. I have tried, on 3 occasions, to
> gain access to what is left of the
> specimens to undertake an initial assessment but have not been permitted
> entry......
>
> This saddens me. Those is a senior position should have done something about
> it decades ago!
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Best Wishes,
>
>
> Chris Chadwell
>
>
> 81 Parlaunt Road
> SLOUGH
> SL3 8BE
> UK
>
> www.shpa.org.uk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> With regards,
> J.M.Garg
>
> 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna'
>
> Winner of Wipro-NFS Sparrow Awards 2014 for efloraofindia.
>
> For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora,
> please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group (largest in the world-
> around 2700 members & 2,40,000 messages on 31.3.16) or Efloraofindia website
> (with a species database of more than 11,000 species & 2,20,000 images).
>
> The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a thousand species &
> eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged
> alphabetically & place-wise). You can also use them for free as per Creative
> Commons license attached with each image.
>
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