B0225 – Sikkim and the World of Rhododendrons

Sikkim’s rhododendron. Landet og kulturen.

After the realease of the widerly received Life and Times of a Plantsman in the Sikkim Himalayas in 2008 as a Memoir, the author is now immeresed in the specific field of biodiversity in wich the State of Sikkim is exceedingly rich. Ever since J.D.Hooker, the greatest plant explorer the Himalayas had ever known, stepped in this forbidden land in the mid-nineteenth century and broughtout the masterpiece of highly illustrated book The Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya. Sikkim’s richness in rhododendrons are widerly known. It is the first time an attempt has been made to get to know these gems of the Sikkim Himalayas so vivedly with illustrations captured in the field during his long sojourn as a member of intrigue of plant the Sikkim Forrest Service. Supplementing the book are some of the very best of illustrations sourced from Rhododendron connoisseurs from around the world.

The author has made an attempt to make a happy marriage of people, places and the rhododendrons away from mundane botanical treatise on one handand on the other to give a new meaning to the plant world and plant-people in paticular. The intrigued of plant explorations is narrated with a design rarely found in any plant book. The associations of lokal people in the arduous but facinating journey of plant hunting, larggely ignored in books of this nature, is researched and brought out with love and compassion for the world at large to understand the Oriental-mind where every object wheather living or inert is respected as an object interwined in the survival of human race. This rare publication is a historical record to be understood, appreciated and treasured for posterity.