A DIGITAL BLOOM

Akhilesh S. V. Nair has digitised the trees and garden plants at Kanakakunnu Palace as part of his dissertation

Akhilesh has documented 126 species as part of the project

For Akhilesh S. V. Nair, it is a happy moment. A first rank holder in MSc Botany, he has digitised the trees and garden plants at Kanakakunnu Palace, a tourist destination in Thiruvananthapuram. “I have done this as part of my post- graduation dissertation,” says Akhilesh, who began working on it in 2016.

“I am interested in plant taxonomy. Coincidentally, my guide Dr A. Gangaprasad too is working on this branch. He suggested Kanakakunnu Palace,” says Akhilesh and claims that with this digitisation, Kanakakunnu Palace has become the first public place in India to have digital flora.

The project is an outcome of his numerous visits to the spot. “I have spent Sundays and the one- month vacation for this,” says Akhilesh, who has documented 126 species. “That is not the individual number. Under each species, there are many varieties,” he adds.

As part of the project, Akhilesh plastered labels with QR codes for each tree at the Kanakakunnu garden. One can access the information by scanning the code. “The label has basic information such as the name of a plant ( in both languages) and its family. If the visitor needs more facts, scan the QR code

given in the label and the person will be led to the blog asvnairflora. blogspot. com , where all details are written,” says Akhilesh. “The blog can also be accessed from faraway places. In that case, the person has to either read it from the blog or download the app ‘ golden flora’ from the link given on the site and then read. By choosing the latter option, one will be able to read about all the plants in that 21- acre plot of land,” he adds.

The key feature of his project is photographs. “I took a majority of the photos. And a few of them I have sourced from other places with their permission,” he says. How do these photographs help? “Suppose one goes to the palace in January and gets interested in a particular plant that blooms in December. Then, she or he can scan the code and see its pictures during the flowering period from the site,” he says.

Akhilesh has put labels only on trees. “I couldn’t do that on garden plants because they are too small to plaster a label onto. But the blog carries information about them,” he says. The labels are laminated and won’t get destroyed easily. “These will remain intact at least for a year. I may have to replace them with new labels after that,” he says.

According to him, it is not the weather but people that cause damage. “The labels are tied using a special thread. I had to replace the labels many times after people tore them away. Now they are slowly becoming aware of the importance of the project and cause less harm,” concludes Akhilesh, who hopes to create a digital revolution in the plant taxonomy sector.