Nature in wild profusion
Takir Hossain is cheered by sights of beauty
Noazesh Ahmed is a name that hardly needs any introduction. He is an internationally reputed agriculture scientist and a notable photographer. Basically he is a photographer of the 1950s. Noazesh Ahmed is a plant geneticist by profession. He has given lots of valuable things to our agricultural field. He is not only well known in our country but also abroad. He obtained a gold medal for outstanding contributions in agricultural research and development in 1978. He is also an environmentalist. He has always vouched for the development and preservation of our environment. In Wild Flowers of Bangladesh, Noazesh Ahmed reveals compassion and an aesthetic bent of mind. This book presents the flora of our country as also of the subcontinent. Wild flowers of different varieties are available in our country but, unfortunately, not many have worked extensively in this field. When Noazesh first started his career as a research scientist, it was with tea plants. He lived in a remote corner of the country and was surrounded by a deep green world. Besides tea plants, innumerable plant species, mostly wild flowers attracted him all the time. His head was then loaded with all kinds of new ideas. Noazesh had just returned from the University of Wisconsin, where he had taken a course on Dynamics of Evolution offered by two distinguished professors on the subject, Swell Wright and James Crow. But he was so busy observing the genetic changeability of tea plants that he could only give a superficial glance at the wild flowers that lay like hidden gems on the wayside, riverbanks, around crop-fields and in the forests. However, in his little world he could weave a pattern of evolution depending on the variation of the plant kingdom around him. In that green world a dream was bornhis camera lens anxiously explored our rich world of plants. We acknowledge that Bangladesh and its neighbouring countries in South Asia form a region of rich plant resources. These innumerable plant species generally grow wild on the vast plains, homesteads, shrubberies, marshy lands, coastal areas, forests and hills. This book lists 210 interesting kinds of flora out of over 5000 species found in Bangladesh. Many of them also grow in Eastern India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia. It is a rare publication on wild flowers in the subcontinent. There is a lot of variety in the book. The paper quality is of good standard and the printing is superb. It is matter of happiness that such a book has been published in our country. The book is a collector's delight. In this book each plant is splendidly photographed in colour with a description of its botanical name, local name, habitat, description of the flower, medicinal values and active chemical compounds. This book introduces us to our diverse plant world that we have neglected so far. The flowers have been categorised in five groups --- flora of flood plains and crop fields, flora of roadside and homestead shrubberies, flora of forests and hills, flora of freshwater marsh and flora of coastal strand. All the pictures of the book are very bright and the detailed accompanying information helps readers to know more about the flowers. Noazesh Ahmed was born at Paril-Noada in the district of Manikganj in 1935. He did his Ph.D. in Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin, U.S.A in 1960. He served the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as South East Asian agricultural advisor. He has been associated with the Banglapaedia project. He is a regular contributor of environmental articles to national and international newspaper and journals. He has produced a number of books on different subjects.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments