This was my second visit to the world-famed Valley of Flowers. It is nature’s rock-garden. As the rains come, thousands of colourful annuals burst forth in myriad shades and colours and mysteriously vanish from the floral scene as the winter descends over the Valley. Beside the river Pushpavati, are the green meadows from whence emerge beautiful flowers of different sizes, shapes and colours. The scene changes as the day passes; tomorrow would be a different scene.
I walked up to the grave of intrepid botanist Joan Margaret Legge who had come to study the Valley’s magical phenomenon. During her field work she fell and succumbed to her injuries. Frank Smythe, with another botanist Richard Holdsworth undertook taxonomic search. They identified over 2000 plants that belonged to garden genera (Smythe, Citation1932). Many of them were herbs. For some time, I stood spellbound, musing what nature-forces empower these mountains panoramas – no body feeds them nor do they seem to be impacted by ‘change of climate’. They survive by themselves.
Access to the Valley was uncontrolled. Tourists littered wherever they liked; stray animals found an easy way. Drifters and junkies found a haven to enjoy. Home to hundreds of butterflies, Holdsworth marked thousands of strange insects. The sight of the Valley was mesmerising.
The Valley of Flowers is situated in Indian Himalayas (3658 m) on the way to Badrinath. The entire biosphere expresses itself, with lofty mountains, high waterfalls, densely growing flowers, and pastures. Frank Smythe the British mountaineer, discovered it in 1931 while returning from an expedition to climb Kamet. It is said to be known to Hindu priests who named it as Nandan Kanan. As more people came to know of this floral exotica, they grew curious to know about it. Finally, in 1982, it was designated as a National Park.
The more I saw flowers, the more overwhelmed I became. I got lost to know their amazing cycle, marvellous rhythm of growth, the splendour of high mountains and their mosaic of colours. Is there anyone who knows why purple Orchids love the near presence of Thistle? Bewildering must be their ecosystems. The Valley was baffling as much as the web of life appeared to be complex, when links are complex. Valley’s spectrum changes fast (Singh & Kaur, Citation1980).
The Valley seemed to be a small wilderness where solitude reigned supreme. I thought that if the Valley be left uncared for; the day is not far off when this paradisical valley would turn into a dry space.
It is not difficult to define an ecosystem, but it is puzzling to witness its functioning. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the non-living components of their environment interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrients cycles and energy flows. To understand the working of an ecosystem, one has to have a proper analysis to know the cybernetics, which is a trans-disciplinary approach for exploring systems and their structure. Cybernetics in short means governance. It is the art of steersmanship. It is a science of organisation and study of controls of any system by using communication technologies in animals, men and machines (https://cybernet.com).
Even with reliable lab-results one can question what interacting effect of nourishment do Fertilaries exercise upon Potentillas that one dies enlivening the other or do silver-birch trees have any food-chain effect on these wild flowers. Why do some plants love to survive in water-runnels? These are hard questions that need rigorous experiments to understand the working of an ecosystem.
The sun was going down and darkness was enveloping the Valley. My mind was still wanting an answer to the ecological questions: why does the Valley flourish at a given time? How can Nature’s cybernetics organise this piece of bio-sphere?
As night fell over the Valley’s landscape, it turned into silhouettes. Our guide warned us to leave the Valley for the elfs and fairies who spend their nights in the Valley. Lo! the insects started their orchestra – it was sweet music, soothing to the ears. Just then, there was a grunt of a bear – a kind of death knell. No-one can stay in the Valley in the night. I asked an innocent question ‘Do these flowers sleep?’ The guide laughed out loud and it echoed and re-echoed in the entire Valley. The guide was telling that there are number of Valleys of Flowers in Uttarkashi. Har Ki Doon is most colourful but only a few visit this floral bonanza. Flowers bloom and die un-noticed, unseen. The Himalaya is Nature’s museum – a great laboratory.
Editor-in-Chief
References
- Singh, T. V., & Kaur, J. (1980). The valley of flowers in Garhwal Himalaya: An ecological pre-view. In T. V. Singh & J. Kaur (Eds.), Studies in Himalayan ecology and development strategies. New Delhi: The English Book Store.
- Smythe, F. S. (1932). Kamet conquered. London: Victor Gollanez Ltd.