some of the plants which caught my recent imagination..........

Oh..this you know our onion Allium cepa

This is really an Euphorbean beauty.....Flueggea leucopyrus see the white globes!!!!!!

The snake of forest...Pothos scandens ...this plant trails the bole....watch the fruit

beautiful, lovely..what not is this gem of the waterbodies...............Nymphaea rubra

Changing the fabric is Terminalia arjuna

the great plastic debate continues.......

My further thoughts......Banning will not work...People will just ignore and continue to defy it....Moreover it is not at all practical..there are many authorized and un-authorized manufacturing units of diverse plastic goods. But this sector is the bread and butter of lot of families.

The only way out is to dissuade people from using plastic. Ask them to reduce their dependence on plastic. Education or awareness creation is the key factor here....all educated people should volunteer to speak on this issue....For a plastic banishment to materialise let us focus our attention on schools..let teachers be educated on the perils of the indiscriminate use of plastic. Let them then pass on the message to their school children. Let this be a "take home" message. The parents will listen to their children. Leave it to the kids, they know how to influence their parents!

The next target group should be women. It is because it is this group that goes for shopping! Let them carry non plastic bags to the shops. If plastic bag has to be used, let them re-cycle it. Since being an influential member of the household, they can play a crucial role in the plastic banishing campaign. A plastic free civilization ( a generation too)  can emerge from the lap of the mothers!

Of late there are way side vendors who sell all kinds of cheap plastic goods at throw away prices. We all fall for it. These cheap things can only be thrown away after a couple of uses! This only contributes to the mounting plastic waste hillock! Let us stop this business. Let these people sell something else. I now hear that our traders are going to China and importing such cheaply available plastic items! Plz stop this practice.....

Why not we create an environment monitoring mechanism at the panchayath/municipality or corporation level in our state?  Let one of the councilors be the ombudsman of this mechanism.

I am just back from Lalur, infamous for its garbage mounts...On my way back I also visited a vegetable shop in Mannuthy...The vendor did not give the vegetables in a plastic carry bag..he wrapped everything in used newsprint. The ban is on....Let it continue for ever...... 

Ban(ish) plastic carrybags

In Thrissur and elsewhere, there is going to be a ban on plastic carry bags.....I doubt how effective this will turn out to be....10 years ago, i tried to educate the traders at Ambalavayal, Wayanad on the ill effects of its unscrupulous use.  I have to get back to see if it is still around...Though the use of black coloured carry bags are banned for carrying food items, I think I am seeing it almost everywhere. White, transparent or black, it is the convenience that ordinary people look for...

So, will ban help? Nope...ban will work, if we can banish this thing from the mindsets....Educate and encourage people to REMEMBER to carry bags (cloth, plastic (yes, one which will stay for atleast 5 years), paper etc etc  each time they shop. Politely decline the offer of a carry bag every time you shop. Erect big posters near traffic signals about the perils of reckless plastic use and wastage.

This is now becoming a very common scene

My train stopped a few kms (in that usual place) before Ernakulam station...One loses count of the plastic bottled strewn there.....As citizens what is our responsibility towards Earth?

Yup...extinction is a biological reality...and man is preparing the ground for that!

3rd Luckins C Babu Memorial Lecture “MISTLETOES”

3 years gone by since LCB left...my interest in the GREEN UMBRELLAS he instilled will remain as long as my brain stays healthy....We used to joke how lucky Luckins sir was! A man, maybe, who thought that nothing can go wrong.....anyway he showed the courage to do some unconventional things...May his soul rest in peace...But no doubt, he was a gifted plantist...

He is remembered all time.........

Taxonomy is the artful discipline of biology.....I want more and more young fellas to come forward and follow this discipline as a passion. Let these young fellas teach others the art of identification.....