Sunday, 14 July 2024

BOTANY RESOURCES ONLINE

BEST #BOTANICAL RESOURCES TO #SEARCH #HERBARIUM #SPECIMEN AND ARCHIVE #JOURNALS FOR #PROTOLOGUES 

The Botanical world of #Taxonomy is enormous with several scientists from all over the world working on the #classification and #nomenclature of plant species. Though the nomenclature arises from Linneaus' Species Plantarum of 1753, there has been several new taxa and combinations proposed by several authors. In the past, it was difficult for taxonomists from one part of the world to communicate with other taxonomists and in order to browse the collections housed at various Herbaria, one had to physically visit or write letters to borrow specimen. Now, with digitised high resolution images and metadata, it has become easier to access the collections sitting anywhere in the world on the computer and internet. However, this sudden excess information has also led into several confusions in nomenclature and many persons are unable to comprehend the reason for changes and the so called 'accepted' names. I am listing a few websites which enable easy access of bioresource data online:

1. Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)

2. Tropicos

3. Natural History Museum (NHM) - earlier BM (British Museum)

4. POWO (Plants of the World Online) (Kew Herbarium (K))

5. Bioportal Naturalis

6. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

7. Meise Herbarium, Belgium

8. Botanical Survey of India Herbarium

9. JSTOR

10. Academia

11. Research Gate

12. Geneva Herbarium (G)

13. NewYork Botanic Garden Herbarium (NYBG) - CV Starr Herbarium

14. Forest Research Institute Dehradun Herbarium (DD)

15. Wallich's Catalogue

16. Internet archive

17. Chinese Virtual Herbarium

18. Berlin Herbarium

Saturday, 13 January 2024

INSIDE A GRASS SPIKELET

 Have you ever wondered what is inside a Grass spikelet. A grass spikelet consists of several florets enclosed by a pair of protective glumes. The glumes can be considered as bracts and the florets can be considered as flowers. Each floret has an outer covering called the lemma and an inner covering called the palea. They are comparable to the perianth (petals/sepals) of a flower. Inside the lemma and palea, the reproductive structures, namely three stamens and an gynoecium consisting of an ovary, style and usually a bifid feathery stigma is present. The opening of the floret during anthesis is facilitated by a pair of small hygroscopic scale like structures called lodicules. A detailed and labelled image of an open spikelet of Poa is given below.



Friday, 5 January 2024

WE ARE BACK IN ACTION


 #Mystery of #Life is live again. Please follow to stay updated.

#Cows following the Line