Talk:Cowan s.n., Algarah (1923)
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Evidentiary scope
The slip says the plant grew on dry land and was brought from the forest. That places the mounted plant outside cultivation. The accession is classified as Feral on that basis, as roadside and waste-ground sheets such as Stewart s.n., Rawalpindi (1913) are. The note is brief and second-hand: it does not describe the stand, say who brought the plant or place it within the forest. It does not establish a continuing population, a landrace or a living germplasm holding. No conservation priority is assigned.
Georeferencing
Algarah is a settlement in the Kalimpong hills. Kalimpong district was formed from Darjeeling district on 14 February 2017 (Kalimpong District); in 1923 Algarah lay in Darjeeling district, which matches the printed Flora of Darjeeling heading. The infobox uses the present-day district. The slip gives no altitude and no site within Algarah, so no elevation is asserted and the coordinate is Algarah's own point in OpenStreetMap (node 2900638855), 27.12, 88.58, used as a locality georeference rather than as a reconstructed collection point.
Entered under R1 of the coordinate ruling of 18 September 2026, which georeferences a historical accession to the place its label names, at two decimal places, with the mapped object named above. The point locates this sheet to about 2 km, and the article's prose is unchanged. Éloise 06:11, 18 September 2026 (+07)
Editorial treatment
The slip dates the gathering 4/8/23. RBGE and GBIF read the year as 1893. The accession uses 1923, for three reasons:
- the printed label is a 20th-century form whose date line begins 19;
- J. M. Cowan was born in 1892 and joined the Indian Forest Service in 1914 (RBGE Archive);
- the sheet carries the stamps of the herbarium of the Imperial Forestry Institute at Oxford.
The slip is in a different hand from the printed label and uses the form Feets; it is quoted as written. The romanised Ganga is kept as the local name, with the Devanagari गानजा beside it. The article links it to Ganja, as Wight s.n. (1821) does for Gunjah.
The companion sheet Cowan s.n., Darjeeling (1923) is dated the day before and has a slip in the same hand. The collector field uses the printed form J. M. Cowan.
These notes were recorded during accession preparation. Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 21:16, 17 September 2026 (+07)