Requirements for proper Identification

I have repeatedly been requesting to include the name of place in both subject line and in body text. This is essential for a country like India where you may be photographing a plant at sea level or 6000 m asl. The distribution of plants is intricately linked with climatic and attitudinal zonation, and as such it is a great help for both identification and confirmation of identification. For plants meant for ID a few important things are to be kept in mind and written as information.

1. Place, date (at least month) are essential. I think approximate altitude is very useful for diverse climatic conditions in India.

2. Habit and Habitat. cultivated/roadsides/wetplaces/dry slopes/forest, etc. Habit yes slightly difficult but with some effort it can be done. One can easily

write whether plant is soft (herbaceous) or woody. Woody plants with trunk are trees and those without trunk are shrubs. Climbers

(vines) can be known by every one. We have only to stress it to the members.

3. Plant height, length of basal and middle leaves, diameter of flower and size of fruit. These are essential because this can’t be judged from photograph,

but is very essential for identification. Additionally members can always focus some scale indicator in the photograph itself to help identification.

4. I think we have to develop the habit of including minimum 3-4 photographs in uploads and not just flower for proper representation and

identification. As I have been writing repeatedly if members take following photographs, the job of identification would be much easier:

a) photograph showing a twig with leaves and flowers/fruits; b) close up of flower side view; c) close up of flower top view; and if

possible d) photograph of fruit.

Many members often cite the time constraint in not taking and uploading sufficient photographs. I assure you it is only a question of realizing the importance and developing the habit of taking multiple photographs. No one can perhaps know more than when we went on Chakrata trip. We managed more than 6000 photographs each within a span of 4 days, fighting tight schedule, rains, bad roads and all. With tight schedule we would often pluck one twig (for plants common in the area so as not to disturb the ecosystem) and take turns to photograph in the car. One has only to see the display of photographs by Balkar ji to realize the importance of multiple photographs.

LET US ALL CONTRIBUTE TO ENRICH OUR DATABASE AND MAKE THE JOB OF OUR EXPERTS EASIER BY PROVIDING ESSENTIAL INFORMATION AND UPLOADING MULTIPLE PHOTOGRAPHS AS SUGGESTED ABOVE.

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