Impatiens johnsiana

Impatiens johnsiana, Ratheesh, Sunil, & Anil; 
 
 

two more new species from Kerala: I am herewith attaching two new species described by Ratheesh Narayanan and team.
I would like to say few words about him, he is not only a good taxonomist but an excellent silent field worker and a great lover of RET plants of Western Ghats. For his doctoral program he carried out Flora of Wayanad district, Kerala and collected 2034 wild plants. He also described some plants like Miliusa wayanadica, Oberonia swaminathanii, Miliusa gokhale, Impatiens veerapazhassii, Impatiens minae, Impatiens mohana, and Memecylon wayanadica. (Sorry if I missed some) I am sure we can expect some more new taxa credited to him.
Ratheesh sir, please accept my wishes for your future endeavor.

More surprising to me is that now a days new taxa or new species are published within a week…………..? I don’t know why it is hard to digest.
LINDERNIA MADAYIPARENSE was got accepted within three days. While one more species in same journal HIPPOCAMPUS MONTEBELLOENSIS (new sea horse species) was also accepted in a 2 days only.
Too strange. 

why? is it strange…??
may be reviewers and the editors already knew of the research that was perhaps going on for years and years and abstracts were published already and presented at meetings? so it was not a stretch to approve the paper…
I am not a botanist so do not know the norms in botany research politics and publication politics…but human nature remains the same no matter what branch of science or academia we talk of… so consider this: the review process may involve delays due to incompetence of editors, mails, reviewers, and jealousy and stealing of ideas involved or delaying tactics employed that gives the editors’ favorites to come up with their own papers…
may be these reviewers and editors are very honest and upright people …
may be we should congratulate them for their honesty…
and think clearly…
may be …, … and … can throw light on this…

Let me repeat the words of …,
“may be these reviewers and editors are very honest and upright people …
may be we should congratulate them for their honesty… “
Similar to …, I am not able to digest the fact that a paper being accepted ( that too a new species), within a couple of days..!!
I must admit, the Reviewers have done a “GREAT” job…!! And I am worried, not for the long delay being taken for the review of one of my new species, which took almost one year for the process, not for the eager of authors to introduce the new plant to the public..!!
A new species can be easily published in a journal with high impact factors. But it may take months or sometime years to publish it after its critical review process..!! I heard from a reliable source, that another fellow is waiting for the review process of a similar species for its publication in a high impact journal.
I hope that would have been a miscommunication..!!
I need to add one more thing..!!
Last week I heard another story about a species already published in JETB (Journal of economic & taxonomic Botany). A researcher tried in vein to find the type specimen or any other collections of that particular species. Interestingly, none of the authors remember the exact locality, where the plant was collected and the place where the specimens were deposited…!! and the saddest thing is that, one of the author admitted that, he/she hasn’t seen that plant.. Who knows the truth whether the species occurs or not??
“may be these researchers are very honest and upright people …
may be we should congratulate them for their honesty… “


 

 
 

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