Thanks a lot, Chadwell ji. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "C CHADWELL" <[email protected]> Date: 11 Jan 2017 3:26 a.m. Subject: Iris hookeriana flower colour + lack of field notes for herbarium specimens & pressing Iris flowers To: "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]> Cc:
I have just come across a letter from the late Mary Briggs past Secretary of what is now the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. I met Mary on her frequent visits to the main herbarium of the Natural History Museum in London. She had undertaken a couple of treks in Kashmir and was interested in plants from the region (and many others parts of the world having led and incredible number of botanical tours for plant enthusiasts). Arthur Chater (joint author of 'An Enumeration of the Flowering Plants of Nepal') kindly introduced us. The letter represented comments after she had read my 'Report on the Kashmir Botanical Expedition, 1983'. I had described Iris hookeriana (based on Stewart) as "the common purple Iris of alpine meadows" in Kashmir. Mary stated that a large number of flowering clumps that we saw were in fact blue and a few *brown*- flowered clumps were seen too. By the latter she would have mean genuinely brown, rather than just flowers which "gone over". A widespread problem with describing flower colour is that few have access to a standard colour chart and describe colours differently. I am partially red-green colour blind and no doubt see some colours differently to others. In the days of slide photography, I would often barely see pinks/reds in some images. Another serious difficulty arises from many pressed specimens in herbaria having few IF ANY accompanying field notes. This is a MAJOR problem in Indian herbaria as many 19th century specimens collected during the days of the British do not have flower colour on the labels. Too many Indian botanists have also failed to note flower colour in specimens collected since Indian Independence. Flower colour OFTEN changes during the drying process. *One is supposed to make a note in field notes* *ANYTHING that cannot be told from the specimen after drying and pressing.* One of the advantages, provided the images are good quality and close-up, of digital photography is that one can see the LIVE/FRESH flowers - rather than having to guess on the colour based on a pressed specimen. Flowers of Himalaya describe the flowers of this species as "purple blotched". Please note it was not a spelling/typing/transcription error that this species was Iris hookerana, rather than Iris hookeriana. At that time there was a debate on the correct Latin treatment of the specific ephiphet (name) of this Iris. *Another consideration is that pressing Iris flowers well is not easy. The petals need spreading out with* *a flower dissected/have its parts separated and then dried SEPARATELY, otherwise, if pressed in the normal* *way they can easily shrivel up and **look dreadful/be of limited use.* *See: http://www.iiim.res.in/herbarium/iridaceae/iris_kumaonensis.htm <http://www.iiim.res.in/herbarium/iridaceae/iris_kumaonensis.htm>* Best Wishes, Chris Chadwell 81 Parlaunt Road SLOUGH SL3 8BE UK www.shpa.org.uk -- 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.
