Cotoneaster humilis

Hopefully the images will help botanists and plant enthusiasts to “get their eye in” with this and other Cotoneaster species – a much neglected genus.  Though as you say, C.humilis is most likely to be found in districts bordering Tibet.

The specimens of Cotoneaster humilis I located in Miyah Nullah, Lahoul were growing amongst Iris kemaonensis and young plants of what I

took to be Juniperus macropoda at the edge of fields of Inula racemosa and on a smaller-scale Saussurea lappa.

Knowing altitudinal range, ecology/habitat details and associated species helps locate promising places to look out for particular species – plus brings the plants alive (as do good photos). 

Basic check-lists (if reliable) and floras with lots of botanical descriptions are useful in their ways but to understand each species we need to know its habitat requirements and genuine abundance or rarity.  This can only come from field observations and now digital images undertaken by active and knowledgeable plant enthusiasts (whether amateur or professional). These things bring plants alive to me and are more likely to engage a greater number of people that old-fashioned purely ‘botanical’ written floras.  We are in an age when close-up images allow us to understand much better.  There is still very much a need for pressed specimens and herbaria but they must embrace what digital photography can offer. 

Crude estimates of ‘rarity’ based on minimal surveys are misleading and need to be challenged.  One cannot judge if something is genuinely

rare sat in an office and to proclaim a species as ‘Rare & Endangered’ when it is no such thing is very wrong.  What about the species which are actually rare – they are being abandoned…..

As mentioned previously, in the UK we are blessed with ‘The Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland’ (BSBI) which brings together both professional botanists (some do not realise that many botanists do not specialise in identifying plants in general) and keen amateurs, though most of the amateurs soon become of ‘professional’ standard with their input invaluable.  In no country are there sufficient professional botanists to survey a country’s flora well – they need help.   Even if they are enthusiastic and active, other duties mean they cannot spend all their time observing wild plants.  So it is impossible to understand a flora well just with botanists working at Institutions.

This google group and the sterling efforts of … help to bring together a similar mix.

Those of us with a botanical background should always be mindful of not intimidating those who are beginners botany-wise (no matter what their background).  We were all beginners once and nobody knows it all – the field of botany is so vast.