Ashwini Superb presentation i love it Usha di ===========
On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 8:31 AM Ashwini Bhatia <[email protected]> wrote: > I have been trying to establish the correct identity of our plantago > species here. Since it is a difficult genus, it took me quite a while to > reach some conclusion. Following our previous conversation I had started > with *Plantago major* as the beginning point. Referring to the excellent > *Tibetan > Medicinal Plants* edited by Christa Kletter and Monika Kriechbaum (I > found a copy in a Tibetan library here) I started looking first at *Plantago > depressa* because our plants do not always have noticeable broad leaves. > Studying the visible characteristics was not enough to rule out depressa so > I had to pull out two plants (something I don't enjoy doing) to look at the > root structure. I found the younger of the two plants without any rootstock > but the other *had a stocky rootstock, the bottom end of which looked cut*, > which according to the key in the book ruled out depressa (which should > have a taproot). Furthermore the *seedpods contained between 9 and 14 > tiny seeds each measuring roughly 1.2 mm*, strengthening the case for *P. > major* complex (depressa should have 6-8, 2 mm each). > > Once I ruled out depressa, I started looking at plants similar to *P. > major* (within the complex) that fit the description of our plants. A > comment in the book said that *P. erosa* is difficult to tell apart from *P. > major* but erosa has hairy leaves especially when they are young. I > looked at young leaves and found them to be hairy. In fact there are > scattered leaves even on the mature leaves. Also according to the key, > erosa should have a continuous sepal keel, which again is true for our > plants (I will appreciate if someone could confirm this looking at the > photos). > > So *I am inclined to put our plants as P. erosa within the larger P. > major complex*. Please advise. > > I found another pdf on the family here > <http://ashipunov.info/shipunov/plantago/plantagineae_key.pdf>. > > All plants were photographed at roughly 1700-1800m altitude between 08-10 > May 2019 in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. > > Thanks. > Ashwini > > PS: Please note my new email address. Thanks. > > -- > 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 view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/indiantreepix/CAAKUM9C5eFSdPsmr4PqB1ULhA1OARUyCNLrCpdm33ZsFnvx9jA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/indiantreepix/CAAKUM9C5eFSdPsmr4PqB1ULhA1OARUyCNLrCpdm33ZsFnvx9jA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/indiantreepix/CANAwU1V-V%3DpL_tyZ%3D-HVPeiURN1bysY_8aWfbDxhtAm-Fvk63A%40mail.gmail.com.
