Gurcharan Sirji, Thank you very much for your valuable inputs...I would surely follow them. I am forwarding your email to all 37 participants who are travelling in my group, under great leadership of Balkar Singh ji. I am sure they would be happy to be at the receiving end of your suggestions.
regards Rajesh On 7 July 2012 16:50, 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/ > > -- Regards Rajesh Sachdev http://project-matheran.webs.com https://www.facebook.com/leopardguy
