plant diversity

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/jd-hooker-indian-plants-and-the-unexplored-himalayas/article19385251.ece

J.D. Hooker, Indian plants and the unexplored Himalayas
Kamal Bawa, R. Ganesan
July 29, 2017 17:14 IST
Updated: July 29, 2017 17:18 IST



Diversity: In present-day India alone, the genus Impatiens, for example,
is known to contain more than twice the 100 or so species estimated by
Hooker.
We should pause and reflect on the current status of the documentation
of India's amazing plant wealth

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, one of the greatest explorers of the
nineteenth century, and the closest friend of Charles Darwin, was 32
years old when, in 1849, he visited the then remote kingdom of Sikkim in
the Eastern Himalaya. Over a two-year period, he travelled widely in the
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya and described over 3,000 species of plants
for the tiny state of Sikkim, 7,096 square kilometre in size.

After Hooker returned to England he went on to write, over a 25-year
period, the seven-volume Flora of the British India—the first and still
the only authoritative account of the plants of the vast sub-continent.
June 30, this year, marked Hooker's 200th birth anniversary.

While celebrating the bicentenary of Hooker's birth and his enormous
contribution to the documentation of biodiversity in one of the hottest
global hotspots of biodiversity, we should pause and reflect on the
current status of the documentation of India's amazing plant wealth, the
pace of global environmental change that is impacting this plant wealth,
and the prospects for sustainability in the Himalaya, particularly the
Eastern Himalaya, where Hooker conducted his most notable studies that
led to the compilation of the flora of a vast region.

It is questionable if the pace of cataloguing life in India or South
Asia has advanced very much since Hooker's time. The descriptions of
many plant genera on which Hooker worked still remain incomplete.
Hooker, for example, wrote to Charles Darwin about the taxonomic status
of Impatiens: "I took down the most difficult genus of Indian plants I
could think of to work at:—viz. Impatiens of which there are just 100
Indian species! I have made the first draft of a monograph of them…"
(J.D. Hooker to Charles Darwin, December 2, 1857:
https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DAR-00104-00178/3). Since the
pioneering work of Hooker, species of Impatiens from the entire Himalaya
or India have not been fully catalogued.

Hooker's exploration of the Indian sub-continent was very limited. He
could visit only a small part of the huge sub-continent. In present-day
India alone, the genus Impatiens, for example, is now known to contain
more than twice the 100 or so species estimated by Hooker: the British
India at the time of Hooker included Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
New species of Impatiens from the Himalaya are being described every now
and then. Thus, further work is necessary to fully document India's
incredible diversity of plants, especially from the unexplored regions
of the Eastern Himalaya.

Stupendous effort

It is interesting that Hooker single-handedly organised the effort to
write the flora of a sub-continent, extraordinarily rich in species.
British India at Hooker's time perhaps had more than 25,000 species of
flowering plants. Hooker described about 16,000 of these species. With
modern digital and other tools, and a sound infrastructure for field
work that Hooker could not dream of, Indian scientists have a great
opportunity to complete Hooker's unfinished task, and to produce a
complete, modern authenticated list of India's plants.

The neglect of plant exploration in India, particularly in the Eastern
Himalaya, where Hooker began his professional career, is ironic. The
Eastern Himalaya, along with Hengduan Mountains, matches the Andes that
include the lowlands of South America, as among the world's richest
centres of plant diversity. There are thousands of economically
important species, many such as rhododendrons, orchids, poppies,
primroses and, of course, Hooker's balsams (Impatiens) of immense
horticultural significance. Many species remain to be discovered:
despite the lack of systematic exploration, from 1998 to 2014, according
to the World Wildlife Fund, India, 375 species of new plants were
discovered in the Indian part of the Eastern Himalaya.

Changing landscape

At the same time, the Himalaya is changing rapidly. When Hooker visited
Darjeeling and Sikkim, he writes in his Himalayan Journals that he could
see dense forests all around him. These forests now exist as a patchwork
of fragments, and are threatened by a host of factors such as expanding
populations, infrastructure development (roads and hydropower) and
climate change.

There is thus an urgent need to conserve remaining biodiversity and the
associated ecosystem services, particularly in the light of a recent
report about the world wide "annihilation" of the biological world, also
termed as the sixth mass extinction. Our country, for instance, has lost
more than 50% of the populations of many of our large mammals.

This decimation of life is particularly ironic when many species are yet
to be discovered, and when the evidence is mounting that nature provides
us with a host of economic benefits that we had not thought of before.
Take for example a recent, widely publicised, study that shows that
economic flows from six selected tiger reserves range from US$128
million to US$271 million per year.

A commitment to fully document the richness and the value of life in the
Himalaya for the benefit of our society might be the best way to
celebrate the birth anniversary of one of the greatest plant explorers
of the world.

Kamal Bawa is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of
Massachusetts, Boston and the President of the Bengaluru-based Ashoka
Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). R Ganesan is
a Fellow at ATREE. The views expressed are their own.

Aashaad kaa ek din

NASA on Friday tweeted a picture of the full moon mentioning Guru
Purnima, which is celebrated during the full moon day in the month of
Ashadh. It's known as the birthday of Veda Vyasa, and is dedicated to
teachers to pay respect and show gratitude to them.

NASA, however, did not stick to Guru Purnima alone, but tweeted about
its many other names from different traditions, including their
'favourite' — Thunder Moon.

Full moon this weekend - called Guru Purnima, Hay Moon, Mead Moon,
Ripe Corn Moon, Buck Moon, or our favorite, THUNDER MOON
pic.twitter.com/XLufAdoDEQ
— NASA Moon (@NASAmoon) July 7, 2017



Thunder Moon because thunder storms are frequent at this time of the
year.

Here's how the Moon gets the other names:

The name Hay Moon comes from harvest season as farmers bale hay for
coming winter in parts of the world.

It's also the month when Native Americans harvest corn and so it's also
called Ripe Corn Moon.

Also called Buck Moon or Full Buck Moon among the Native Americans as
this is the time male deer grow antlers.

This is when the large beehives are formed and the fermented honey is
used to produce a type of wine called Mead and that's how the full moon
gets it name of Mead Moon.

Also called #DayaxNaylaQaad in #Somali#FullMoon
— A A M Samatar (@AliMohamoud) July 7, 2017