POSSIBLE ID OF THESE SMALL, WILD FLOWERS PICKED AT TIME OF 1999 KARGIL WAR : 4 posts by 2 authors.
I have a somewhat different request for an ID from learned members of this group. During the 1999 Kargil War, I had a chance to report the battle from 15,000 feet at the Kharlubar ridge in the Batalik sector for The Indian Express. These flowers lay with us for the last 15 years preserved in the letters I had sent to my fiancee. I recently wrote about those days in the newspaper as a short memoir, and readers were interested to know the ID of those Kargil War zone flowers.
I can understand it would be difficult for members to pinpoint these flowers but some members would have an idea which flowers these could be. These were small, yellowish flowers mostly, while some were mauve-bluish. There was no other vegetation at those heights as Batalik-Kargil heights are very gaunt.
I would consider myself fortunate if I could have some guidance from the members on the possible ID. I am attaching two pixs of the flowers as they are now after 15 years of preservation in the folds of a letter.
Very difficult to say from state of flowers but what come to my mind some Astragalus or Caragana, common at those height. I am attaching some herbarium photographs so that you can compare.
Thanks, …
I cannot say for sure but some of the attached pixs look like the Kargil flowers
What would be the common name of these flowers?
Do these come out after the snow thaws? Anything special about them? How do they survive the deep kargil winters?
You can have clearer look at these plants here
Perhaps other related information also.
Some more here
THANKS TO EFLORAOFINDIA : 1 post by 1 author.
My thanks to the efloraofindia group and … for enlightening me on the flowers I had picked from the Kharlubar ridge during the 1999 Kargil War. This features in the Hindustan Times Sunday `wildbuzz’ column of July 13, 2014.
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