Thank you Dr Rawat for this recommendation. I have ordered my copy on Amazon and am looking forward to receiving it. There is a great need for good pictorial guides of smaller geographical areas (*Flowers of the Himalaya* is very ambitious in its scope!) and I hope more such guides are produced.
With best regards, Ashwini On 28 September 2017 at 13:49, J.M. Garg <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks a lot, Rawat ji, for the beautiful analysis and review. > > On 28-Sep-2017 1:33 PM, "D.S Rawat" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Yesterday (27th Sept. 2017) I received my copy of ‘*Plants of Kedarnath >> Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Himalaya: A Field Guide*”. >> >> As claimed it is a good field guide for the person interested in >> flowering plants of West Himalayan hills. The authors of this document are >> well known workers of angiosperm taxonomy who have done extensive >> explorations in this part of the Himalaya. Expertise of the authors is >> visible in this document where they have described and illustrated about >> 575 species of montane, sub-alpine and alpine habitats. The alpine flora of >> the Himalaya, particularly of the Uttarakhand is difficult as these plants >> are less accessible and thus not well studied, collected or photographed. >> Even in the Oleg Polunin and Adam Stainton’s “Flowers of the Himalaya”, one >> of the most important pictorial document for high elevation flora, >> Uttarakhand was not well represented which becomes apparent by their >> remark- “It must be confessed that both authors have traveled much less in >> the hills of Uttar Pradesh than elsewhere in the Himalaya.” and “However, >> it remains true that if one wishes to see either the East or West Himalayan >> flora at its best one should not choose to visit this central portion”. I >> wonder, the authors of this field guide either took it as a challenge or >> were inspired by the ‘Flowers of the Himalaya’. The fact considered as >> weakness by Polunin and Stainton can be taken as strength of the flora of >> Uttarakhand where both eastern Himalayan and western Himalayan elements >> intermingle and represented making it rich, though with less endemism. >> >> >> What attracts me more is the price of this document which is very >> affordable to even a research student (it costs 695 India Rupees including >> postage) and I hope it will soon become popular for this reason alone. >> >> >> Printing quality has improved in India significantly and this document >> with this much low price is one example. However, one must not forget that >> conditions in high hills are not always very friendly for photographing the >> plants, particularly in rainy season, the main flowering season. It must >> have taken years of repeated efforts to develop this remarkable collection >> of large number of species. Since it is a field guide (and not a >> traditional flora) it lacks keys but the authors have an alternative to it >> in the form of a short cut to reach to a species by classifying plants >> based on flower colours and providing thumbnail and page number of each >> species in this classification. >> >> >> The nomenclatural part and identifications are appropriate though I >> disagree/ sceptical (I wish I prove wrong!) with (very) few identities. >> Though, these do not undermine the quality and usefulness of this document. >> >> >> In my opinion this book deserves place in institutional libraries, and >> more so in the personal libraries of the naturalists interested in the >> floral wealth of the Himalaya. It makes the difficult job of identification >> easier with images and description, after all “*a picture is worth a >> thousand words*”. >> >> >> DSRawat Pantnagar >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> ------------------------------------------------ >> Dr D.S. Rawat >> Department of Biological Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & >> Technology Pantnagar-263 145 Uttarakhand, INDIA >> *eflorapantnagar* <https://sites.google.com/site/eflorapantnagar/home> >> displaying wild flora of Pantnagar >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "efloraofindia" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "ITPmods" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/itpmods. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
