CHRIS IDENTIFIES PLANTS for free ..

Chris has offered a FREE & RELIABLE identification service for photos (and pressed specimens) taken in the Himalaya since the 1980s, specialising in material from the NW regions (particularly Indian States of Kashmir & Himachal Pradesh but does try with material from Pakistan, Nepal & Bhutan) - NO Indian botanist, Indian botanic garden, Indian university, Indian institution nor any such bodies in the West does this (some of these institutions will name dried pressed specimens but nowadays securing permission to gather such material is virtually impossible)! 

Unless plants are reliably identified, it is IMPOSSIBLE to genuinely CONSERVE them - even though international bodies mistakenly think so!  They are wrong... Number of active Indian botanists who can identify plants when surveying in the NW Himalaya? ZERO.  Instead 'rare and endangered' species are INVENTED in offices and herbaria to produce FAKE 'Red Data books', which are blindly accepted by international bodies.  The Indian authorities then fraudulently claim the rarity is according to the IUCN (the International Union for the Conservation of Nature) - who are being taken for a ride.  A similar situation exists for Indian submissions to CITES (Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species).  The ONLY place to discover which Himalayan species are rare, common or abundant is in the Himalaya itself but on the occasions Indian botanists venture into the mountains it is mostly sat in vehicles following roads and tracks - they rarely, if ever, explore on steep slopes, amongst large boulders, scramble on cliffs or actually trek/camp. MANY species claimed to be 'rare', 'endangered' or even 'critically' endangered are no such thing!  The 'Camp' methodology used by Indian botanists is a joke.

By 'Himalayan' I follow the definition used by Polunin & Stainton in 'Flowers of the Himalaya', "Frpm Nanga Parbat on the Indus the Himalaya stretch eastwards 2250km to Namcha Barwa on the bend of the Tsangpo in South-East Tibet'. 'Flowers of the Himalaya' covered only the part of the range which lies in Nepal and the Indian Western Himalaya (now Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states), a distance of 1450km.  I am also able to cover the remainder of the Himalaya proper, though the further West one is, the greater my familiarity with the flora and I can also name material from the Karakoram mountains of Northern Pakistan; Baltistan in particular, has a flora which overlaps considerably with that of Ladakh's. More precisely, Ladakh is in the TransHimalaya.

On-line sets of images identified by Chris:

FLORA OF THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF PAKISTAN within summitpost.org - though several images in the gallery were actually photographed at lower elevations.  May 1st-3rd May 2018.  See: https://www.summitpost.org/flowers-dodhipat-lake-kaghan-valley-pakistan/363077/c-349436

FLORA AROUND K2 & BROAD PEAK, BALTISTAN, PAKISTAN, see: https://photos.v-d-brink.eu/Flora-and-Fauna/Asia/Pakistan-new/i-CkSw2Ts




FLORA OF KASHMIR, LADAKH, HIMACHAL PRADESH, NEPAL, SIKKIM - SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO EFLORAOFINDIA FROM 2016-17 (see: https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/about-us/other-important-contributors - scroll down to his name). Chris made numerous corrections to misidentified plants as well as providing detailed information, far greater than any other contributor.

Private sets of images (not currently available on-line) identified by Chris:


Private lists of identifications undertaken by Chris Chadwell, in reverse chronological order:

Plants photographed in Markha Valley, Ladakh by Dr M.Leigh (1989)
The Cambridge Karakoram Expedition 1984. James Mayers collections (1985)

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