Aparna ji
I may be wrong but my experience says that we need crucial microscopic
characters only when we don't have an identified herbarium specimen and are
sitting with an unidentified and a book with relevant keys. When we go to
different herbaria with our own herbarium specimens, we don't dissect
herbarium specimens (ours or that of herbarium) to arrive at an
identification. What I have been stressing on, is that pictures of
different angles of a plant can allow any one who has once seen, studied
and identified a particular species, grasses or no grasses. I think Dinesh
ji, Tabish ji, Satish ji, Pankaj ji, Nayan ji, Prashant ji (many of whom may
not be professional taxonomists) give identification within minutes simply
because they have specnt lot of time with that plant and know its physical
markers. For me Asteraceae is more complex identifications mostly based on
achene and pappus structures.
Coix may have unique fruit characters but I remember Coix lachryma-jobi
was identified within minutes of its uploading, by several members on this
group. On this group now it is now fastest finger first. How lucky we are.
My request again, let us not scare people from grasses and sedges.
Encourage them to know more and more of them.
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College
University of Delhi, Delhi
India
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aparna Watve" <[email protected]>
To: "Satish Phadke" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Gurcharan Singh" <[email protected]>; "Vijayasankar Raman"
<[email protected]>; "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]>; "Nayan Singh"
<[email protected]>; "indiantreepix"
<[email protected]>; "grassman" <[email protected]>;
"Avinash dada" <[email protected]>; "Rani Bhagat"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 12:37 AM
Subject: Re: [indiantreepix:22164] Re: Grass for id 031109jm2
> Dear Satishji,
> The issue is not about photography (digital or otherwise or any other
> technology) but whether a photograph (the kind that commonly
> circulated on this list) is good enough for identification of Poaceae,
> Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae (I am at present and in the previous mails
> mainly talking about these complex families.. for which I included a
> warning clearly stating so). I have taken great care to choose the
> words I have used, and want to limit the discussion to these families
> only. For other families, i have been giving pointers as and when I
> could.
> I totally agree with Dr. Gurucharan ji, that one can keep giving
> suggestions for improvement in photos... (I already do that for many
> other taxa). But for these three families, I find it unlikely that
> people on this list will take the kind of photographs that are
> required for an accurate identification of the taxa up to species
> level in Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae.
> I would be most happy if I am proven wrong and someone surprises me by
> giving an excellent photo of nut ornamentation, or a complete set of
> pictures for a grass species or Eriocaulon species showing all
> characters mentioned in the key to id upto species level.
> Regards,
> Aparna
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