It has been a while since I updated the thread and as the dog has been walked and the drive cleared might as well take the opportunity.
I recently submitted the final report to the exploration committee and I’m modifying to something that suits the Rock Garden. This evenings offering is just going to be some nice pictures of plants that have had the determinations done.
The collection statistics now stands at 1181 collections covering 121 families and 383 genera for flowering plants and ferns. There are still 129 collections only identified to Family and 52 collections as completely unknown.
Allium prattii grew in the remnant Betula-Sorbus forest.
Anaphalis nepalensis grew in extensive patches in the flood plain near Joge Tal at 3800m.
Leontopodium himalayanum grew around and on the glacier at Bobaye at 4100m.
Finally my favourite Corydalis was
Corydalis elegans. We only found a couple of times one was my collection east of the Bobaye glacier at about 4200m.
I'll leave with you plant name anecdote. One plant we were looking for is the Western Nepalese endemic
Primula ramzanae - which we didnt find. It was originally collected by Polunin Sykes & Williams (PSW) 42 in 1952. Turns out that the nepalese all laugh about this species because of the name.
Presumably a conversation between one of PSW asked a local went like this.
"What do you call this plant?" said PS or W.
"ramzanae" said the local.
"Oh ramzanae you say, I'll write that down.
Primula ramzanae has a good ring to it." said in PS or W.
Bhaskar the Nepalese botanist based at RBGE tells me that ramzanae translates as "god knows" so now replay the conversation with the translation. It still makes me chuckle.
