Saussurea simpsoniana

Thanks … for sharing a nice picture of the rare herb.
I guess you cleared the snow/ice around the plant to take the picture. Or, is it natural?

---

Thank you … for liking Saussurea simpsoniana, locally known as “Jogi Badshah”.

‘Missing the snow” indicate that you probably worked mainly on subtropical/ montane flora or fauna/ ecology at WII.

Familiarity of name may be because of the similarity with Dr G.S.Rawat (now at ICIMOD) who is an authority on Himalayan alpine flora and ecology.

I have been working in alpine zones of Uttarakhand since 1987 when I opted to explore “Alpine flora of Kuari Pass Dalisera Alpine zones in Chamoli district” for my M.Sc. dissertation. Since then trekking in alpine zones of Uttarakhand had been more an addiction of these enchanting landscapes of “Bugyals”than merely collecting plants/ ecological data. I have mainly interacted with plants of these areas, herdsmen (Bakarwals) roaming there but little with the experts, taxonomists or ecologists. Nor I published high IF research articles which are the reasons behind not being familiar with my name.

---

---

ASTERACEAE Fortnight Part 2-Discoid heads Saussurea simpsoniana from Uttarakhand_DSR_31 : Attachments (1). 1 post by 1 author.

Yes, things have certainly changed.  I realise that funding for Universities in India is much better than it was in the 1970s and 1980s plus one

must appreciate genuine security issues which have compromised assess to some parts of the State for decades.

The images I have just been posting re: Botanizing in Kashmir were taken using slide film (something that was not available much in India) in the 1980s and then scanned in on a cheap scanner given to me some 20 years ago I think.  About a year ago, I used my very cheap, modest, second-hand digital camera (obtained on e-Bay by one of my sons) taking pictures at a local canal.  In 2 hours I took as many photos as the total number of rolls of 36 exposure slide film I would have taken for a 1-3 month visit to Kashmir.  Yes, one could not afford more than 1 or 2 shots per plant encountered.  The great thing about digital (now that memory cards can accommodate vast numbers of images) is that one can take as many as one likes 20 (or more) per plant if one so wishes, at no cost!

The budgets for my travels in the 1980s were very tight.  We travelled overland from Delhi by train, being robbed one time just as the train started to leave the platform at the Old Delhi Railway Station, with a camera bag taken.  Despite spending months warning my team (who were on their first visits to India)  about security, especially in cities and during journeys, insisting that money-belts were used, the person who had a camera bag and our best camera (I could not afford anything other than a cheap, poor quality one) had put his money-belt in the camera bag.  His passport, return airline ticket and 1/4 of our money for a 3-month stay in Kashmir, gone.  Rather a shock and it was is 24th birthday!  Us Brits are not accustomed to the heat of an Indian summer, so tend to be disorientated & prime targets for thieves upon arrival – though I should add this applies in cities all over the world….  I know of Indians who have been tricked & cheated in London (though often the pick-pockets are not British – an accurate statement as Britain has its fair share of ‘British’ thieves).

On reaching Jammu we took a bus to reach Srinagar via Banihal.   We could not afford to hire jeeps, so travelled around the Kashmir Valley by local bus. The situation in the early1980s was, I imagine not much better than the 1970s.  To visit Aphawat we got a packed bus to Tangmarg (one had to transfer to another bus for Gulmarg) but found this almost impossible for us novices as normal, “first-come, first served rules did not apply. It was a “free-for-all” – there were few buses to Tangmarg with large numbers of potential passengers waiting for them and one had to rush and try to push aboard which with 4 of us + rucksacks, in a foreign country, not a simple task, so spent hours failing, time after time…..

Most of the time we would hire a pack-animal or two at the road-head for a 7-10 day trek and walk all the way with smaller day ruck-sacks, camping in the mountains.  As we did not have the money to pay the exorbitant prices the main ponymen wanted, we tended to be given a teenager with little experience instead.  A number of times our rucksacks came off the ponies and ended up in streams and rivers.  Quite a game.

On one occasion camped at some 3300m below Kolahoi’s north glacier, the poneyman decided to treble the prices to take our rucksacks back to Pahlgam.  We refused. In the middle of the night he departed!  We were left to carry all our gear back, which took us 3-4 days – thankfully, almost all down-hill.    See attached images. A valuable lesson and in time we got to know reliable Kashmiris especially my good friend Ghulam Rasool Beigh, who was trustworthy, worth hiring him to make more satisfactory arrangements.  Anywhere in the world, having a local person you can trust makes a big difference, making you less vulnerable.

On my journeys into Ladakh some years after my first visit in 1980, with Ghulam’s help, we paid drivers of Public Carrier Trucks to take us first from Sonamarg to Kargil then along the Suru Valley and one year into the Zanskar Valley, having to wait 4 days on the Pensi La, for a truck returning from Padum.

The roads are much improved in Ladakh these days, though the opportunity to return to Zanskar has not arisen. At present, I could not afford even a flight to India.

It was a delight to be able to reach the top of Sinthan Pass in Kashmir by a comfortable 4WD a few years back.   And to fly from Delhi to Leh in little more than an hour – a journey which had taken 4 arduous days of travel back in the 1980s.

In theory one could fly Delhi to Leh then hire a jeep straight to the top of a 5000m+ pass but that would be foolhardy in the extreme.   Just because one can get up to higher altitudes much more rapidly these days does not mean it is sensible to do so.

Thanks … for beautiful account.
My older photographs are at Delhi, but here few from our first visit to Ladakh in about 1971 when we had hitch-hiked the rides from civil and army trucks, but luckily had Govt. Dak Bangalows to stay: Myself, Dr. R N Gohil (you must be remembering) and our friend from Zoology, we even rode a Donkey.
Also seen is Dr. Bimal Misri (on right) in Khillenmarg meadow above Gulmarg covered with Euphorbia wallichii, patches, same plant clicked in colour in 2010