Thanks Garg ji With best regards Ashutosh Sharma
On Mon, Jun 6, 2022, 12:50 J.M. Garg <[email protected]> wrote: > Published on > > https://efloraofindia.com/2022/06/06/ashutosh-sharma-best-flora-photograph-to-celebrate-15-years-of-completion-of-efloraofindia-on-17-6-22/ > Posted it in the efloraofindia Facebook page > <https://www.facebook.com/efloraofindia/posts/1775393176131416?__cft__[0]=AZXuTi5IAk4O0fB99djYG72P_LdVtYLUXQsDfe__ETmZ28N6NHBptgY9cW5-LXn_qI44C6nL2DoWZqPWp9LJkeFRmSed0FBd95IOiHbQoUb0BvrT4aWsM1GL3CkLQngCXIceat1ztqkHQNcV8gIOjB7b_-VBGbHvlL0ods36Y9lxhQ&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R> > . > Pl. give it wide publicity in Social media, by posting it in your profile/ > groups/ Instagram etc. > > On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 at 01:40, Ashutosh Sharma <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> It was the 3rd of July in 2017, when on a hot and humid day, I had >> embarked on a journey to a place I had previously visited only once, in the >> hope to find some orchids. >> >> Around that time, I was a first year student doing BSc. Hons. in >> Forestry, who was on his semester break. Though I was a curious student, I >> had very little to no knowledge about orchids and definitely no prior field >> experience of finding orchids in the wild. Despite this, I had a newly >> developed passion for finding orchids in their natural habitat, which would >> be difficult to reason out why. So simply put, I was out there out of my >> mere obsession to find an orchid. >> >> The only orchid I had seen before this encounter was that of the much >> common Rhynchostylis retusa (a epiphytic orchid) that was brought to me by >> my father, making me clueless about the habitat of a terrestrial orchid. >> The little knowledge I had about orchids was based on the few online images >> and videos of orchid hunting that I had watched. >> >> As I live in a broad valley in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, an >> area that is surrounded by big mountains in every direction with small >> narrow valleys in between having lush green temperate forests, I already >> had some intuition of finding orchids in one such undisturbed serene >> forest. So, I immediately dialled up a friend of mine asking him to spare >> some time of his to accompany me and more importantly take me on his scooty >> to the place which was about 15 Km from our village. In spite of having a >> busy schedule, he managed to make it on time. At 11AM on that particular >> day, the two of us started our journey in the hope to find a orchid we >> started getting plenty of Balsams, Rananculus and many other species which >> were very new to me those days. In a span of two hours, we stepped our feet >> on top of a hill which was about 2400 metres in elevation. I was quite >> happy because I found several plants new to me, but certainly was not >> satisfied because what I was out on a hunt for was an Orchid!. Before I >> start exploring further deep in the jungle, my friend got a call from his >> father asking him to come home early, forcing me to blurt out the words >> "haan chalo chalte hain" (yeah let's go back), with a heavy heart and an >> obvious fake smile. >> We started our return journey and to save us some fuel, we lowered our >> pace on the neutral scooty, enjoying the view. The next thing I know, my >> eyes have struck hold of something unusual on the right side of the road >> that took us downhill. I patted my friend, motioning him to stop the >> scooty, but before he could bring the scooty to a halt, I had already taken >> a leap off the vehicle, exclaiming "I finally found an Orchid". When I got >> closer to the two plants growing together, I found them to be very strange >> as not a single leaf was visibile to my eyes. All that I could see was a >> dark yellowish-brown colored tall erect scape with several flower buds and >> couple of mature flowers. After taking a few images using my simple android >> phone (Gionee M5 lite), we started our return journey with my mind etched >> on the orchid, thinking which orchid could it turn out to be. I had >> literally no idea about which orchid it could be. Infact, I still don't >> have any answer as to how I was able to confidently call it an Orchid (as I >> didn't find any peculiar labellum/lip to conclude it like most epiphytic >> orchids have and had almost no knowledge about orchids). As soon as i >> reached home, the first thing I did was look up papers as I couldn't resist >> my urge to get it's name. With me, I had a paper titled "An annotated >> checklist of the Orchids of Western Himalaya, India" with several >> photographs where I tried to check for possible matches, only to find that >> there is no image matching with the one I had clicked. So the next thing I >> did was to make some wild guesses, while scrolling through tens of pages >> long paper having some two hundred thirty nine species names, making it >> obvious that the probability of getting the correct match was absolutely >> negligible. But to my (everybodys') surprise, my second guess Galeola >> lindleyana took me a little closer to identifying the orchid's name. After >> looking up its images, I was very much sure that it's in the Galeola genus >> (a rare mycoheterotrophic orchid) which has only two known species from the >> Western Himalaya. Only later did I get its species confirmed as Galeola >> falconeri Hook.f. by our group orchid expert Dr. Pankaj sir... >> >> And after two years, in 2019, when I went back to the same place to see >> this orchid again, I was surprised to see that the entire locality was >> badly devastated in a road widening operation. In front of my eyes, I could >> see a big JCB working bringing down trees, making me feel sad and helpless >> at the same time. However there was some hope in me, telling me that some >> of its individuals must be thriving in the nearby deep forest. And finaly, >> only this last week (May 2022) after extensive field work in the same area, >> I found five plants of this really very rare orchid species (yet to flower) >> growing in much safer locality, very deep in the forest away from the >> public eye. >> >> And now when I look back at those days, I wonder how and when this >> obsession of finding Orchids out of mere curiosity turned into a >> never-ending true love for Orchids. This better remain a mystery! >> >> -- >> 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/CADkfUKt2G_WCs8R-qpf1LiwwQH5DevTecb6hUtYihC3%3DDYFnSQ%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/indiantreepix/CADkfUKt2G_WCs8R-qpf1LiwwQH5DevTecb6hUtYihC3%3DDYFnSQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > > > -- > With regards, > J.M.Garg > -- 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/CADkfUKtM2syE%2BE2pV4V80JrkHTz_u5B4Sa%2BeK7brhG4vLeQ39g%40mail.gmail.com.
