Thank you very much, Gurcharan ji. Hoping to get the best from Valley of Flowers. Will keep in mind the points you suggested.
Regards. Dinesh On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 4:50 PM, Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear members > Let me first wish the members visiting Valley of Flowers next month, a > happy and enjoyable journey, memory cards, pen drives and external hard > discs full of lovely photographs (they will need it thanks > digital photography which allows you to take as many photographs as > possible without much recurring expenditure; it will be useful if one or > two members have a small laptop to download pictures from camera into > storage drives for other members also). I wish I was a part of it, my long > standing desire. Unfortunately I won't be a part of this dedicated team of > explorers, as I am flying to USA towards the end of this month. > I have seen and to some extent had some role to play in making members > to get identifiable photographs. It was a practice (and still with many > often citing time constraint) to take a single (or a few) close up of the > flower only that makes identification a difficult task most of the times. > More so digital photography often gives very confusing estimate of size, > unless a measurable object or scale is used. The size of plant, size and > shape of leaves, their insertion, arrangement of flowers on the > inflorescence axis, bracts (presence, size and shape), pedicel (presence or > absence and length if present), size of calyx in relation to corolla > (including size relation of lobes and tube), corolla colour, length, > diameter; number of sepals, number of petals, size relation of corolla tube > and lobes, numbers of stamens and length, numbers of styles and stigmas and > their length in relation to ovary, the type, shape and size of fruit are > all important characters very crucial in identification. More so in > different families different characters hold more importance, which even > not the trained taxonomists may know for all the families. > I am not here to confuse you the least. Just enjoy your trip and > photography. Forget about these terms if you are not a botanist. Just take > a few good photographs of each plant that you encounter, upload it when you > come back, and let the experts extract the identifying features from your > photographs. I hope it would be ideal if you bring back at least four good > photographs of a plant: > > 1. Habit of the plant, showing a twig well in focus, taken from side of > the branch. > 2. Close up of the flower from side so that its insertion on the axis is > visible. > 3. Close up of the flower from the top so that corolla, stamens and > carpels are in focus. > 4. A close up of the fruit (in available. > Any additional photograph would be a bonus, but please don't miss any of > these as far as possible. > Please spend an extra shot of a small twig with flowers along side a scale > (a pen especially its tip pointing the objec; or on your palm so that you > can later estimate size) to get accurate estimate of size of flowers and > leaves (and by inference other parts. > > Again wishing you a Happy and fruitful trip of Valley of Flowers > > > -- > 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://www.gurcharanfamily.com/ > http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ > >
