Dear Sir, >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. Please take into consideration the diversity shown by the families in question in our vast country. Simple matching with a herbarium specimen for these genera is as inaccurate as matching with a photo. One needs to key out a specimen most times to arrive at an ACCURATE identification. For ex. I am familiar with Cyperaceae in Western Ghats of Maharashtra. But when I go to Delhi, and see a plant I can identify visually, I prefer to key it out using Delhi floras, as that region may have certain species which look a lot like the one I know from Maharashtra. Some Eriocaulon sp. look very different, visually (as a photo would capture) when they are young individuals, from what they will look like when they mature- chance of inaccurate identification are high.
>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. Well we don't do that as a normal practice, because we trust the person who has originally keyed out them, and it means that the species matches the description already written in literature. We certainly do dissect our own specimens, again and again till we are sure of identification. And at times, botanists, especially those who are experts, or reviewers of certain groups, do dissect out specimens from standard herbariums like BSI, (we had several such visitors in Pune BSI ,western circle), duplicates generally or originals (even types) by special permissions, because the whole purpose of a herbarium specimen is to serve a reference for future workers >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 wish it was true, but it isn't due to diversity and variation seen in plants in general, and in Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae in particular. If the pictures include key characters (to name a few nut ornamentation, ligule, stigma, underground parts, lodicules, glumes, arrangement of glumes,,,, and several more) expert might be able to figure it out eventually. 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. I respect them all for this, and they do this for non complex families, and are mostly accurate in id. However, the point is not fast identification, but ACCURATE identification and that too of Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae. For me Asteraceae is more complex identifications mostly based on achene and pappus structures. > Yes it is one of the complex ones. I personally feel comfortable in guessing > a genera of Asteraceae from a picture. But I will never claim to be accurate > about it, knowing my limitations and the diversity of this family. 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. > In case of Coix what generally is considered a nut is not nut at all (this is > not a unique fruit character). In fact, Prashant ji's picture yesterday was > very similar to coix, but Pankaj has already commented that he thinks not, > and I would like to see the typical character, to which Prashant ji has said, > that he also felt something was different from coix and hence one should not > jump to conclusions (please see his relevant mail on this). Second example to > corroborate my views, a picture of Echinochloa was identified as Brachiaria > spp. by Avinash ji. Later Dr. Anil Kumar corrected the id to Echinochloa > colona. If he was not around on the list, the plant would have gone by a > wrong name, and would have confused someone later. SO the experts on this > group have to be constantly vigilant about wrong ids. I personally would aim > at accuracy rather than speed. Perhaps, we should think of a scientific review of the database as Vijay ji has mentioned. > My request again, let us not scare people from grasses and sedges. Encourage > them to know more and more of them. My warning is carefully worded as : "Identification of Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae (to name a few) should not be confirmed from photographs" I do not think these words can scare anyone or discourage them from photographing a species they like. The aim of attaching the warning message, is to keep people aware of the fact that Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Eriocaulaceae are complex families, which need a lot more care than many others in identification. And, hence if they want to accurately identify species of these families, they need more effort in making it possible. Regards, Aparna --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "indiantreepix" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
