A Mediterranean Burnet Grows in Lebanon - Observation of the Week, 3/29/22

Our Observation of the Week is this Mediterranean Burnet (Sanguisorba verrucosa, مرقئة ثؤلولية in Arabic), seen in Lebanon by @ramymaalouf!

A Lebanese-Spanish field naturalist currently residing in Bucharest, Romania, Ramy Maalouf says that as a child in Lebanon he would collect fossils and minerals in the mountains, but

my curiosity and excitement about botany and entomology started later on when I  moved to Algeria thanks to a friend, Emilio Esteban-Infantes, who was also living there at the time. It was also when I decided to start the photographic documentation of all my encounters in nature and learn more and more about the taxonomy of plants.

Ramy has moved around for much of his adult life and says “I decided to accustom myself to every country I visit through its nature and plants,”

During the lockdown imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, I developed my page Flora & Fauna, where I post all my discoveries and make them accessible to everyone. I found myself with a huge database of more than 15,000 photos (of more than 2,000 species) of plants, insects, animals and landscapes from five different regions and countries: Lebanon, Galicia/Spain, North East Algeria, Romania and Al Ula/Saudi Arabia. It took me around 14 months to upload the database on the website. It soon became my window to the world and my way of presenting my observations.

Two of those photos are the ones you see here, when Ramy was on Mount Bakish at an altitude of about 1,600 m. “The name Bakish comes from the Bacchus (Dionysus),” he explains, “the god of wine and vegetation in Greek mythology. It was called that way because of the red soil that resembles the wine color.”

Members of the rose family, Mediterranean burnets are reddish-purplish when in bloom, and those flowers eventually turn into the fruits you see in Ramy’s photo. 

Ramy (above) tells me he’s currently working on three projects:

• the flora of Mount Sannine, Lebanon
• the flora of Al Ula, Saudi Arabia

• the fossil records preserved in Amber that are found in two new sites
  that my father - Mounir Maalouf - and I discovered in Lebanon two years
  ago, with the guidance of the renowned paleoentemologists Dany Azar and
  Sibelle Maksoud.
  

But he’s continuing to upload his photos to iNat, which he first heard about from his friend @abounabat. “Since then,” says Ramy,

my experience and interaction with enthusiasts and professionals scaled up and with it my way of conceiving the world around me. It also helped me orient my work and my research in the field based on what others are finding around me. Having a community that is so active encouraged me to dig deeper and pay more attention to the natural environment around me. I am happy and proud to be part of your community.

- You can follow Ramy on Instagram and Flickr.

- Burnets range throughout much of the northern hemisphere, check out the most-faved ones here!

Posted on March 29, 2022 09:47 PM by tiwane