When you have your own discovery on Alamy!

[Gurcharan]

It is really unique feeling to have your own discovery on Alamy. Not really very good from photographic point of view, but Biologists on the forum will realize its importance. The plant is found only in a small area in Kashmir. I discovered, named and described it in 1976 as Tragopogon kashmirianus, an allotetraploid between two diploid species of genus Tragopogon. Hybridization between two diploid species is common in nature, but hybrids invariably fail to establish as they lack complementary chromosome set and fail during meiosis process, but if hybrid chromosome set gets duplicated (breeders do it using special techniques),tetraploid hybrid would be fertile, vigorous, combining features of both parents. It is very rare in nature, the best example of which is our wheat plant Triticum aestivum, a hexaploid formed in two stages, a cross between two diploid species and chromosome duplication resulting in tetraploid progeny and subsequent cross with another diploid (forming triploid) and consequent duplication forming our hexaploid wheat plant. This phenomenon is found in genus Tragopogon, a similar example in USA T. mirus has rays purple in upper part, yellow in basal plant, because one parent has yellow ray florets, other purple. My Kashmir plant has yellow rays with  purple vertical lines. A recent research paper at DNA level has proved that my plant is different from T. mirus.

http://2006.botanyconference.org/engine/search/index.php?func=detail&aid=544

 

Please find four images of T. kashmirianus on Alamy online from today.  http://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?&n=NaN&imageid={E481EC64-33D2-4B99-BA1B-FA5A16723305}

 

http://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?&n=NaN&imageid={EBBFB4DB-E501-4679-BEA3-C29E6E0F979C}

 

http://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?&n=NaN&imageid={165F6AF8-ECCB-4AD7-8547-E198A1893558}

 

http://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?&n=NaN&imageid={50A6ED43-A32A-4F77-A705-DDD9DD2E3501}

[John Richmond]

Excellent, Gurcharan.  To me this is where Alamy is so valuable as a home for rare and unusual shots that might appear to have little commercial value and wouldn't be accepted by some other agencies.  Assuming Alamy survives, your record shots will be of historical significance.  They may only sell once or twice over the years but I'm sure that will be OK with you.  

 

I was a little surprised when I first started to contribute to Alamy just how many gaps can be filled.  I've got a number of plant species and varieties where my shots are unique to Alamy,  Makes it an easy choice when buyers go looking.

[Keith Burdett]

Congratulations!

[Gurcharan]

Thanks a lot John and Keith. This plant is valuable to me because when I discovered it 1976, we had only film cameras and you could take only one or two photographs, that also B & W, colour photography being a luxury then. I subsequently came to Delhi and it was only after 2006 when I owned  digital camera I could photograph plants liberally, and as I would visit Kashmir only for few days during vacations, locating and clicking this plant in short flowering season and that too between 10 am to 12 am was a challenge, as flowers close after that. Luckily I could click a few.