Talk:Christison s.n., Simla (1859)
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Evidentiary scope
The label records a place, a year and the fact that both sexes were gathered. It says nothing about cultivation, wild growth, use or a local name. It gives no altitude or habitat. The accession is classified Other on that silence, as the other Simla-area sheets of the series are. It establishes presence at Simla in 1859 and nothing beyond that: no stand, no landrace and no living holding. No conservation priority is assigned.
Georeferencing
Simla is present-day Shimla, in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh. The label gives no site within the town, no altitude and no habitat, so no elevation is asserted and the coordinate is Shimla's own point in OpenStreetMap (node 316417040), 31.10, 77.17, used as a locality georeference rather than as a reconstructed collection point. The infobox uses the present-day district, as Fleming s.n., Simla (1849) does for the same place ten years earlier.
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 5 km, and the article's prose is unchanged. Éloise 06:11, 18 September 2026 (+07)
Editorial treatment
The label signs the gathering A. C. 1859 and gives no other attribution. A pencil note at the foot of the sheet reads Alexander Christison. The title, the collector field and the collector number all use that expansion, for three reasons:
- the expansion is written on the sheet itself, not supplied by a catalogue;
- Alexander Christison (1828 to 1918) was an Edinburgh graduate of 1850 who joined the East India Company's service as an assistant surgeon in 1851 and was posted at Agra from late 1858, so he was in northern India in the year the label gives (University of Edinburgh, Papers of the Christison Family);
- the sheet is in the Edinburgh teaching collection of James McNab, which is where an Edinburgh family's Indian material would be expected to land.
This is a reading, not a signature. If it is not accepted, the title would be A.C. s.n., Simla (1859) and the collector field would carry the initials alone. RBGE and GBIF name no collector at all.
The scientific name field uses the label's Cannabis sativa var. indica, which the RBGE catalogue also carries. GBIF adds the authority (Lam.) Wehmer, which the catalogue page does not, so the authority is left off.
These notes were recorded during accession preparation. Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 04:43, 18 September 2026 (+07)