Dear Dr. Gurcharan Singh ji, Vijayshankar ji, Thank you for your guidance and warm welcome to a complete novice like me. It is wonderful and encouraging to know that eFI has people from so many different backgrounds.
Regards Shan On 18-May-2011, at 10:08 PM, Vijayasankar wrote: > Yes, I personally feel that our group is not yet fully technical, too. If at > all we use any technical descriptions, it is only to verify and confirm the > identity of the plant in question. > We don't just deal with the scientific names alone, but we also discuss the > uses of plants, their local/vernacular names (most often in the original > scripts of languages), habitat, variations, plant-animal interaction etc etc, > wherever such information available. All these have effectively made > non-botanist members to contribute and interact without any inhibition. We > have several examples for this. > And there is no restriction for discussing non-technical matters of plants in > the group, in fact it is welcomed. > I am sure that eFI is the best forum today to discuss with any Indian plants, > incl. trees. > Even the design of webpages and database is being done and improved by the > fellow members. You may like to contribute in this area also, if you wish. > > > Regards > > Vijayasankar Raman > National Center for Natural Products Research > University of Mississippi > > > On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Shan ji > Our efloraofIndia group has all ingredients for such interactions. Out of > nearly 1600 members, there or hardly 50 odd or so with background in botany. > Rest are from different background: doctors, engineers, farm owners, > photographers, nature lovers most of whom have little or no technical > knowledge about botany, but know their plants so well, and willing to know > more and more plants. Perhaps there could be no better synergy than this. > More so, all are welcome to join the group, send their photographs for > identification of all types of plants, including trees. > > > > -- > 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, May 18, 2011 at 8:18 PM, Shan <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear eflora members, > > I recently joined efloraofindia and also discovered the flowersofindia and > Dinesh ji's Flickr site. As a layman, I am amazed at the richness of > information and the generosity of spirit in sharing with the world. Since I > don't have a background in botany, I did find the discussion advanced. > > Could you please guide me to any website or database, that could help the > common layman to identify trees in India? If such a site does not exists, > would it be useful to create a Creative Commons site with a live database, > where common citizens can directly upload photos and discuss? The goal is to > popularize appreciation of trees and nature among common citizens. > > If such a site is required, I can get it done under your guidance as a > volunteered or sponsored project. > I am looking forward to hearing from you and learning from your experience. > > A brief intro about me: > My background is in design, usability and software user experience. Currently > I work at Infosys as a design educator. (My email to you regarding this > initiative is purely personal and has nothing to do with Infosys). I > graduated in product design, from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, in > 1992. I blog occasionally on education and design related topics at > http://blog.lakesidelatte.org/. > > In the past, I have done some photo documentation of heritage trees for > Bangalore Environment Trust. As a recent initiative a few of us have got > together for a year-long program of taking government and orphanage school > children for trees walks. The walks would be done by botanists and tree > experts in Mysore. > > Thank you, > > Regards > Shan, Mysore > > > > >
