Usha di
That is the beauty of the group. We botanists learn more from the
experiences of members like you who have seen and observed these plants
closely and have their own indicators of identifying them. We botanists try
to find some reliable feature to complement this information. This plant was
a perfect example of this synergy. When you mentioned about this plant
growing in Southern California, I was immediately reminded of my Carissa
plant from L A. After seeing the key in eFlora of China, perhaps there was
no doubt in my mind. The overlapping of corolla lobes and importantly size
relation of lobes and tube are something which can never be missed.
Let us wish to continue this synergy, expand this to evolve more such
occasions.
--
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297 Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/
On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:21 AM, ushadi Micromini <[email protected]
> wrote:
> Thank you Gurucharani, Nidhan ji, Balkarji: thank you for responding....
> since I am not a botanist nor a taxonomist... I rely on observing "every"
> possible feature that seems relevant... and am a serious subscriber to the
> edict of Liberty Hyde Bailey, co-founder of the American Society for
> Horticultural Science [ASHS], that "an awareness and appreciation of
> plants began with salient visual encounters with plants and direct
> observation of their interesting attributes."
>
> And so when I first encountered the white flowers of Carissa macrocarpa...
> i did not know what it was, but they were fragrant when first opening...
> that started my interest.. but I did not go any further, a few weeks later
> I found a red berry hiding in the leaves, trying to get to it to look my
> hand was scratched mercilessly ... first I thought I was bit by
> something...it was such an active scratch... which I now know to be the
> weird double thorns, that you have depicted well in your photo:
> <https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix/attach/9b77e579fc059012/Carissa-carandas-LA-4.jpg?hl=en&part=9&view=1>
> *Carissa-carandas-LA-4.jpg*
>
> in the link
> https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix/browse_thread/thread/31145e1ab206c491/11ab84bbbfe55caf?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Carissa#11ab84bbbfe55caf
> and this sort of thorn pair does not occur in karambada// karamcha...
>
> That year five years ago it took me several days to possibly identify my
> pink-violet-red fruit that once was a white flower, and its parent plant
> was willing to bite me with forked thorns.... I filed my pictures originally
> as" Karamda relative"... about a week later I knew it was most likely
> Carissa macrocarpa.... from visual clues provided at various reliable sites
> on the net and google images....
> I don't think I had known of flowers of India then... nor of eflora... now
> that I do, I am learning by leaps and bound... and am photographing stuff
> all over.... but have to file them and then learn to downsize so they can be
> posted.... bear with me... I'll still learn the art... and do it...it would
> make our conversations more interesting.
>
> thank you, Usha di
>
>
>
