Well said Sir ji.
On Jul 7, 2012 4:20 AM, "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/
>
