Signatures of Plants, mainly Dicots
Authors introduction to the Website "www.signaturesofplants.com"Some monocot genera such as SMILAX, DIOSCOREA, and gymnosperm genera such as GNETUM, GINKGO, TAXUS AND CEPHALOTAXUS, have been included in the database because they have laminas of leaves fairly resembling dicot leaves, either in venation or lamina shape, or fruit form as in taxus. I now propose to go on adding monocot genera like the ARACEAE, SOME OF THE LILIACEAE, AND AMARYLLIDACEAE. For the time being orchids and grasses will be left out. Perhaps these require their own data bases with suitable structures and terminologies.
This website is based entirely on a data base of dicot plants of india, a structured
arrangement of the attributes of each species, 6000 of them. This structured database
belongs to me, errors in data entry belong to me.
The data have been taken from
- Indian Trees, by Dietrich Brandis
- Flora of Assam by Kanjilal, and of course
- Flora of British India by Hooker
- Flora of Java by Backer.
Work of data entry started in 1994 and ended in 1995 with 4500 species, I and my
colleague and member of NEPED, Shri.Simon Hangshing, joint director in the Soil
and Water Conservation Department worked together on data entry and structuring.
Since then, todate, the number has risen to nearly 6000 by adding species and data
from other parts of the subcontinent, including some 100 names with data yet to
be entered. The immediate reason then was to help and enable the team of NEPED to
quickly get at the scientific names of plants from what they were being shown or
told by village people. This need to get to the scientific name from observed visual
characteristics, continues to be the reason to this day. There was the awkwardness
of not having any botanist on board the team. So my dear friend and senior colleague
Shri.T.Angami, from the Indian Forest Survice, suggested I train myself to be one.
With his tremendous support, I sat with a botanical glossary and a computer and
started converting texts from the mentioned old books into a spreadsheet format
of the lotus 123 programme. Simultaneously we issued cameras to the team and told
them that, good bad or ugly, a picture was better than no picture. With data entry
from Brandis and Kanjilal complete by end 1995, we were able to identify plants
upto genus level in 90 percent of cases.
There after was only an expansion - transition from one technology to another, addition
of columns or fields,and finally many friends suggested that a website was called
for so that the utility of the method of identification would be more universally
applicable, and provide plant enthusiasts with a tool for exploring the green wealth,
and a means to enable them to reach the scientific names and thereby access world
literature on plants which is closed unless the scientific name is entered in the
search spaces in the various internet websites. Also, I wanted “taxonomy” to cease
being boring and become popular.
In the meantime, sometime in 1996, the NEPED team held our first exhibition on the
lawns of Nagaland House, in New Delhi, with about 500 enlargements of plant pictures,
not just of flowers but of leaves, thorns, stipules, wherever these showed characteristic
features peculiar to the species. This exhibition was followed by another one at
Kohima, Nagaland. Later, in july 1997, I took over as Chief Secretary of the state
of Nagaland, under Shri SC Jamir as the Chief Minister( who, later, became Governor
of Goa, and Governor of Maharashtra), a tenure which ended in june 2000, a period
that enabled the NEPED project survive some grave emergencies. Shri Jamir allowed
me even as his Chief Secretary, to indulge fully in my botanizing. He himself was
very plant minded. There were complaints against me to the effect that “Gokhale
loves plants more than people”. Shri Jamir used to tell me this but never said I
should cease. During that time, Shri.Shiyito Sema continued to be my driver, and
my photography of plants continued. Shiyito is now the “Head Driver” in his parent
Agriculture Department. He is a born Naturlist, has such superb plant sense that
he, a very natural “mitbhashi” or “talking little”, used to be agog with excitement
in explaining to a group of policemen who were attached to me as my body guards
under the command of Havildar Shri.Zhuvihe, who was himself a great Naturalist.
One day, I was just getting up, when I heard Shiyito explain to the bodyguard policemen,
“we are searching for Signatures of Plants, we are not faltoo, tourist photographers”.
This was just the end of 1997. My first book was on the drawings board, and I made
up my mind that its title would be “signatures of plants” through a camera. This
book was published by M/S Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh of Dehradun. Shiyito’s
use of the words “signatures” was so telling that I have retained these words in
the domain name of this present website.
As we continue data entry, it is my wife Savita who reads out and I enter the data.
She ensures that I do the work, and do it accurately without shortcuts. But for
her encouragement and vigilance, I would never have continued work which started
in 1994.
Finally my deepest gratitude to the late Dr.Ramesh Bedi, who passed away in 2003.
A few days before that, he told me “Gokhale ji, kabhibhi retire mat hona”.
He was a lively man, and gave me a hearty slap on the back whenever I produced a
signature photograph.