---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: C CHADWELL <[email protected]> Date: 14 December 2016 at 22:11 Subject: Re: Papaver nudicaule : Srinagar,Kashmir : 14DEC16 : AK-32. IT GETS MORE COMPLICATED... To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, efloraofindia < [email protected]>, "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]>, Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]>
Dr Singh is correct that this is not Papaver nudicaule. *Please note that Jafri & Qaiser (see below) state that Papaver rubro-auriantiacum (Fisch. ex DC.) Steud* *is commonly known as "Iceland Poppy" and under CULTIVATION in gardens has flowers 3-8cm in diam., yellowish to* *orange in Colour. It typically has reddish-orange flowers (fading when dried) and may sometimes be confused with * *Papaver nudicaule but dense silky white hairs on its buds are apparently distinctive.* *CAN ANYONE ADD ANYTHING TO THIS?* Whilst I do know a fair bit about cultivated plants and can sometimes make a meaningful contribution, I have MORE THAN enough to contend with attempting to cover WILD/NATIVE species, primarily plus cultivated plants in general terms, especially when they ESCAPE from cultivation and NATURALISE in the NW Himalaya, whilst taking an interest in the Himalaya as a whole. Once a plant is in cultivation and then bred and selected, working out precisely what the ancestry of various cultivars is often challenging, sometimes IMPOSSIBLE based just on morphology - thus cytological, metabolic analyses are required. I do not have the facilities to pursue such things. *Thus, there are limits to what can be said based on often SINGLE photos, not showing much detail.* *Please note there are a number of other species of Papaver wild in Kashmir and cultivated.* *I happen to have a copy of 'Papaveraceae' for FLORA OF PAKISTAN by Jafri & Qaiser, printed in 1974* *(Fasicle No. 61), so clearly out-of-date, however it contains much more information than Stewart's* *Catalogue.* *For Papaver nudicaule L. they say the Type specimen was collected by Linnaeus himself in Siberia!* *They give a distribution of N&C Asia, West Pakistan (as it was) and Afghanistan; introduced elsewhere.* *They say it is a variable species, especially in size and colour. It appears that the smaller plants have smaller leaves and* *smaller flowers i.e. the variation overall is quantitative with separation of taxa on such characters being of DOUBTFUL* *value.* *Flower colour varies from pale yellowish to yellow, orange or saffron colour and this character is also of uncertain taxonomic* *importance.* *I APPRECIATE IT IS DIFFICULT FOR MANY PEOPLE TO REALISE THAT THE SIZE OF A PLANT AND THE COLOUR OF FLOWERS* *ARE NOT ALWAYS USEFUL CHARACTERS TAXONOMICALLY/IDENTIFICATION-WISE. THIS CERTAINLY APPLIES TO MOST GARDENERS, AS SUCH CHARACTERISTICS (ALONG WITH 'ORNAMENTAL MERIT' WHICH IS LOST ON MOST BOTANISTS) ARE* *OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO THEM.* *The authors also pointed out that Section Scapiflora within Flora of USSR (reprinted edition, 1963) included some 22 species of Papaver, needed a critical check with, perhaps, some species of this section just being variants of Papaver nudicaule as Popov himself admitted.* *They went on, saying that the leaf character, pinnatisect with 3 lobes, each lobe often distinctly pinnatifid or pinnat-partite with at least 3 distinct secondary segments, is a fairly constant character throughout the range of the species. The stigmatic disc shape also seems a very constant character but the fruit shape is somewhat variable and the setae seem invariably dense on capsules in Pakistan examples.* *Popov considered Papaver nudicaule predominantly a central and north Asian species with P.croceum primarily Himalo-Altaian and Sino-Japanese. The differences of flower colour (yellow and orange respectively) and leaf segmentation (narrow and somewhat broader respectively) between the 2 species, seem to disintegrate after examining a large number of specimens from Pakistan.* *Thus the authors gave P.croceum as a synonym of P.nudicaule.* *However, the whole complex needed, in their opinion a THOROUGH STUDY WITH ADEQUATE MATERIAL FROM ITS ENTIRE RANGE.* *Has this happened in the intervening 40 years?* 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' <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1> Winner of Wipro-NFS Sparrow Awards 2014 for efloraofindia <https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/award-for-efloraofindia>. For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/indiantreepix> (largest in the world- around 2700 members & 2,40,000 messages on 31.3.16) or Efloraofindia website <https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/> (with a species database of more than 11,000 species & 2,20,000 images). The whole world uses my Image Resource <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg> 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. Also author of 'A Photoguide to the Birds of Kolkata & Common Birds of India'. -- 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 an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
