Story of OneFlora

Learn to observe: During those three months, we had many 'Tree Walks' around Pune city. Although I had been to those places before, viewing them through botanical ‘spectacles’ was an altogether different experience. The plants that surrounded me till date, were looking different now. They were behaving differently and communicating entirely different language!

Understanding 'Plant Morphology' was the first step. Recognizing different types of leaves, structure of inflorescence and various flower parts was a very intriguing and to some extent, a very daunting task.

Learn to differentiate & identity plant names: 'Differentiation' is a key aspect in the process of 'identifying' a plant. Bentham and Hooker classification system has categorized global plant species, based on floral part characters. Out of about 3 lac flowering plants in the world, about 18000 are in India. These numbers are enough to give a sense of complexity and intricacy involved in this classification process and to fathom the diversity in nature. Plants with similar floral characters are first grouped into 'family' and then sub grouped into 'genus' & 'species'. It's like a funnel which spits out a plant name after sieving it through a hugely complicated filter.

This apparently simple logic to Identify plants can be tricky and exhaustive for amateur observer like me. Contradictory information in various books or websites, difficult botanical terms and complex descriptions in floras were some of the roadblocks. Still in most of cases, I could decipher the name and learned the tricks of the trade.

After the course: I continued recording my own plant observations, scanning road sides, public gardens, canals, hills and just everything that looks green!

IDing plants was like a treasure hunt with clues lying all over - requiring analytical ability, pattern recognition, keen observation and a huge amount of patience.

Ever wondered how the flower of potato or carrot look like? How does peanuts grow? Is apple or fig really a fruit? What is it exactly that the street vendor sells as शमी leaves or गणेशपत्री? Where are those 1500 varieties of Mangos?

Slowly and gradually, I started getting answers to such 'known unknown'.

I documented charts of similar looking species to help identify key differences and started using them during field visits and tree walks to identify exact name of the plant. That's where you start admiring the amazing diversity in nature.

After 3 years, I had Identified about 700 plant species and collected 6000 to 7000 photos.

Why to Identify: The whole purpose of going through this process of plant identification is to be able to understand what and how to 'nurture'. That means, to be able to decide which plants to grow at which location and better understand their role in the ecosystem. Planting tress without knowing their identity, is like starting business without knowing the product!

Whether you wish to plant saplings in residential society, roadside, gardens or mountain hills, choosing right plant definitely increases the chances of plant survival at reduced efforts. 'Know Your Tree' is the most important step before planting that tree. Unfortunately, KYT is ignored in most of the CSR, amateur or even government driven planation drives. Identity matters...

Approach should be to move from tree plantation to 'Land Restoration' - restoring the land to its pre-industrial revolution state. It involves maintaining grass lands, mountain slopes, forests and even deserts without trying to change their natural land profile while giving enough consideration to insects, birds and mammals in order to build a healthy and sustainable space.

'Nurture' can start only after we Observe, Differentiate & Identify.

Why OneFlora:  If plant identification is so much important in nature conservation & restoration activity, there has to be a simple way to document plants and their whole lifecycle, so that anyone and everyone should be able to observe and identify plants they are surrounded with.

Flora is a book or other work detailing the plants of a particular region or habitat. Many botanists over the years have written and published floras of specific regions all over the world. Power of information is when it is together and readily available. There has to be a way to consolidate all this information and make it ONE...OneFlora 

Conservation need is also their for birds, insects, reptiles, worms and countless other organisms. Most of us cant identify insects beyond bees, butterflies and reptiles beyond lizard and snakes. There has to be a way to go even beyond flora and document all life forms on Earth.

https://OneFlora.in - is a humble beginning, documenting ONE at a time. It's an invitation to all the like-minded individuals who are fascinated with the beauty around us and are convinced that documenting this beauty is the way to preserve it!

Afterall there is only ONE Earth...

Part 2: Story of OneFlora - Building a Floral website