Patterns and Shapes of Leaves

 Nature- the master designer.

Nature the creator.

Nature if abused and hurt, can also become the destroyer. For Nature's punishment in the form of man-made floods you may read our story 'The Flood Fury'.

In this post we bring you Nature's creativity as seen in the leaves of plants, creepers and trees. 

All the pictures have been taken in our yard or neighbourhood in Secunderabad India. Of course, it is not an exhaustive compendium of plants and trees. But just a sample for you to appreciate Nature's variety. Can you name all the leaves in above picture?

Leaves convert sunlight to the nutrition needed by the plant or tree for its growth and sustenance. We all learnt that in the school. Does photosynthesis ring a bell? Well, sunlight is crucial for survival of all life on earth. Well, this is not meant as a science class in school.

We are sharing the pictures of some of the leaves below. You can check how many names of the leaves did you get it right? Enjoy.

That was the leaves of monsoon Lily with bright yellow flowers twice a year!

Nature's brush paint is not always green! See the following two pictures.

The Contest

The leaf of Umbrella Palm was the subject of KBG-63, the 63rd edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, our online captions contest.

The Captions

KBG-63 Contest received overwhelming response from our readers. More than 400 readers browsed the contest story. We received 46 creative captions which are listed below in alphabetical order. We thank all the participants.

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-62 Contest
1	Ajai Bhumri	पहली नजर में प्यार हो गया.
2	Ajai Bhumri	प्राकृतिक सुन्दरता सभी की पहली चाहत.
3	Amandeep Kaur	Wohhhhoo
4	AP Sharma	Harmony in Symmetry
5	Avinash Tiwari	Suryakiran सूर्यकिरण
6	BC Jayaprakash	Ulta pulta...I am unique
7	Bharat Ladha	Nature is balanced if we don't destruct.
8	BR Natarajan	In Graphic Design Nature is the ultimate. Others can only imitate
9	Deepak Jena	Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
10	Deepak Jena	Natures beauty comes in all sizes, not just in single size.
11	GB Sethi	Geometry Box gives two dimensions, providential geometry in nature has perfected in three dimensions - us to learn?
12	GR Sreenivasan	Nature's beautiful creations are beyond description.
13	Haripriya Bathula	Phyllotaxy! (Arrangement of leaves on a plant stem)
14	Haripriya Bathula	Perfection in an imperfect world!!
15	Jaishankar	Green radiance
16	K Thyagaraj	Nice picture
17	LS Bhargava	Law of nature- equity, balance and symmetry.
18	Manju Khetan	Wow, beautiful patterns in nature to find fractals.
19	Manu Bhatnagar	Careless perfection for joy and wonderment
20	Naresh Kumar	Spokes.
21	Naresh Kumar	Spinning wheel
22	Nidhi Bhargava	परमात्मा सबसे बडा कलाकार है, उसकी हर रचना बेजोड, बेमिसाल है
23	Pierre D'Silva	In nature, symmetric and asymmetric are both beautiful!
24	Poonam Bhargava	उत्कृष्ट रेखागांडित! प्रकृति सर्वोपरि
25	Prabhat Jindal	We have to learn so much from Nature
26	Pradeep Siwach	Prakriti ka Chakra प्रकृति का चक्र
27	PRR Rao	Awesome!
28	Radhika Sareen	समानता से एकता
29	Radhika Sareen	What if our PALM has such  symmetrical lines...whole world will be together....
30	Radhika Sareen	Nature's Geometry Box
31	Rajendra Singh	Nature, the supreme Art Teacher.
32	Ramanand Baliga	Spokes of the green cycle
33	Rashmi Bhargava	Art of nature
34	Rekha Bhargava	प्रकृति के रेखा गणित के आगे सब गणित  फेल हैँ ।
35	Ritu Bhargava	There is no better designer than nature.
36	Rohini Tiwari	Yeh kaun Chitrakaar hai... jiska yeh chamatkaar hai!
37	Shereen Sultana	Khudrat ka karishma
38	Siba K Patnaik	Gift of Nature!
39	Suhas Kedar,  Vaishali Kedar and  Sandhya Thakare	Nature's way of reconnecting people.
40	Sujata Das	The universe is pure geometry. Beautiful shape twisting around  over space-time.
41	Vandana Bhargava	अलग होकर भी जुड़े रहने में सुंदरता है।
42	Veeky Baths	In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.
43	Vinay Prasad	Nature is the mother of symmetry, geometry, shapes!
44	Vinod Dhanuka	Multi-layered creativity
45	Yogesh Verma	Jeevant
46	Ratnaja Gogula	The Big Bang!

Winners of KBG-63

Our Jury has selected four captions as the winners. The winning captions along with a brief intro of the reader are given below. We congratulate all the winners of KBG-63.

Avinash Tiwari loves golf, gardening and music. A former Col of Indian Army, he is a War Veteran of 1971 war. Having done enough route marches with his troops, he detests long morning walks except on the golf course. He is a regular contributor and winner of KBG contests. His one word caption सूर्यकिरण meaning Sun rays was the Jury's immediate choice.

Jaishankar is a creative writer, blogger and Nature lover. He is a Colonel in Indian Army. He has won several KBG contests in the past. His crisp caption 'Green Radiance' was so apt for the picture.

Naresh Kumar is an alumnus of NIT Srinagar and IIT Delhi. After retiring from the Navy as a Commodore, he served as the CMD of Hindustan Shipyards Ltd at Vizag. Presently he is an advisor to IIT Jammu. Naresh loves to travel and play golf. His caption 'Spinning Wheel' corelates the green spokes of the palm leaf.

Pradeep Siwach PhD has been Vice Chancellor of several universities after retirement from Indian Army as a Brigadier. A keen photographer, Pradeep is loved by his students and colleagues alike. He has won the KBG Contest several times. His caption प्रकृति का चक्र Prakriti Ka Chakra meaning Nature's Cycle reinforces the theme of the picture and the contest.

You may have noticed that all four winners this time are from the Armed Forces. It is just a coincidence and not by design. It brings out their creativity. Who says Fauzis are not a creative lot?

We thank both the Jury members Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava for their time and continued support.

Not Just Leaves

Nature's design capabilities go beyond the leaves of plants and trees. When it comes to flowers, Nature's magic multiplies manifolds. We will bring you another edition of KBG focussed exclusively on flowers. A sample follows.

We end with a PQ- picturesque quote by Alexander Mc Queen.

Once again we thank you for your continued interest and support to KBG Contests. Without you, we would have been nowhere!

Stay connected.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/30th Sep 2021

#Umbrellapalm #symmetry #nature #patterns #shapes #leaves #naturesartstudio #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #powerofobservation #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #secunderabad #observeandlearn #naturesgeometrybox #spinningwheel #suryakiran #greenradiance

Need and Greed

Does Nature gives us enough? Not only for us human beings but for all living beings and plants? Yes, it does. And continues to do so.

Nature addresses the need. 

It ensures enough feed. 

But not human greed! 

As Mahatma Gandhi had said that the “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

While walking around our neighbourhood lake during monsoon, we noticed many wild vines and creepers all over. Many leaves in these wild creepers appeared half eaten with holes and perforations. We saw similar wild growth around a golf course close by. Here are some pictures.

It set us thinking. All this is part of the food chain. Food chains are part of Nature's evolution. So the leaves provide nutrition to the plant or the vine. The leaves also are food for insects and caterpillars. Similarly in a forest, Tigers may be on top of the food chain thus: 

Tiger-deer-grass-birds-soil-water-dry-leaves-as-manure and so on. You may read how birds are an important part of Nature's ecological balance.

How birds sustain the Food Cycle in a Tiger Reserve?

Some more food chains could be: 

Vultures-dead-animals-plants-etc. 

Serpent Eagle-snakes-rodents-plants-roots-insects etc.

Owl-snakes-lizards-frogs-insects etc. See the diagram below.

Fruit Bats-fruits-trees etc. In each of these food chains the decomposers like mushrooms are equally important to sustain the cycle.

As human beings, we should be responsible for maintaining and not disrupting Nature's food chain. For example, denudation of forests leads to reduction in number of deer which are food for the Tigers. This leads to increasing man-animal conflict. Deforestation in the hills leads to landslides causing silting of the rivers down stream and resulting floods. Floods also occur due to encroachment of river flood banks and Nallahs or drains in cities. Readers may browse our previous stories highlighting this aspect and listed below:

Chennai Floods Man-made

Flood Fury in Hyderabad - How a 91-year old reacted to flooding of her house!

KBG-62 Contest

The 62nd edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, our online Captions Contest was based on the theme of Nature's Food Chain. The picture below received 30 different captions from more than 300 readers worldwide. 

We thank all the participants. Complete list of captions is given below:

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-62 Contest
1	Sunisha	Unknown pain seen!
2	Pradeep Sethi	Harbinger of change!
3	Jaishankar	'Cater' ing for others is the 'pillar' of an evergreen life.
4	PRR Rao	Happiness is letting go of what you think your life
5	Poonam Bhargava	छिद्र हुए तो क्या, किसी को तृप्त किया मैंने।
6	Avinash Tiwari	Bandhani work.
	Poonam Bhargava	परोपकार से बड़ा कोई धर्म नहीं
7	Rohini Tiwari	Nature's Origami....unique and beautiful!!
8	Veeky Baths	Barishon ke mausam ki bheegi hariyali
9	Ajai Bhumri	"  बना बलवान अपने को वरना नुच जाएगा् " "Survival of the fittest "
10	Kishor Thakre	Caterpillars at work!
11	Pradeep Siwach	Lebanon (Refugees ate up the nation)
12	BC Jayaprakash	Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. John 15:13 .....Bible
13	Bharat Ladha	Global management of survival.
14	Rashmi Bhargava	Self sacrifice is a real miracle
15	Sujata Das	Nature's rangoli🙏
16	Amandeep kaur	There is no better designer than nature.
17	Siba K Patnaik	I am ok , I am fighting.
18	Manju Khetan	इक दिन बिक जाएगा माटी के मोल, बुरे बिचार के किटाणू ऐसे ही हमारे मस्तिष्क को क्षति पहुंचाते हैं।
19	Manu Bhatnagar	A very hungry Caterpillar
20	Shereen Sultana	Make a life by giving what you have
21	Ritu Bhargava	Not dead, nor alive, still breathing.
22	Nidhi Bhargava	जीना उनका जीना है जो औरो को जीवन देता है
23	Radhika Sareen	My loss, someone's gain
24	Radhika Sareen	Giving makes me more beautiful
25	GR Sreenivasan	Plant kingdom, lives to nourish other species including humans without expecting anything in return.
26	Saumya Goyal	There is beauty even in being broken.
27	Mamta Bhargava	We will survive no matter what may come.
28	Yogesh Verma	Jab Tak Hai Jaan Jeevandaan
29	Peter de Padua	Nature's nature.
30	Peter de Padua	Green Gold, isn't it yummy?

The Winners of KBG-62

We are delighted to announce and introduce the winners of KBG-62. Their winning captions are also displayed alongside.

Yogesh Verma is a former Colonel from the Army Medical Corps. He is a nature lover and keen photographer. His simple caption जब तक है जान, जीवनदान meaning 'Keep giving till the last breath' conveys the self-sacrifice of the leaves as food for the caterpillars and other insects.

Saumya Goyal, a PhD in psychology is a poet at heart. She believes that Nature is the world's largest canvas on which God paints. Saumya's caption 'There is beauty even in being broken' interpreted the picture creatively.

Peter de Padua has won the KBG Contests previously also. A former Wing Commander of IAF, Peter is a water sport enthusiast. His short and crisp caption 'Nature's Nature' won the Jury's appreciation.

Radhika Sareen is an electronics engineer from BITS Pilani who worked with TCS for three decades. A keen traveller she is a regular participant in KBG Contests. Her caption 'Giving makes me more beautiful' caught the Jury's eye.

Once again our congratulations to all the winners and thanks to both the Jury members Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava for their time.

We end this story with a PQ picturesque quote on maintaining Nature's balance through the food chain. The picture of Tigress Sonam was taken in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Thanks for browsing. More KBG contests coming up. Stay connected.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/26th Aug 2021

#monsoons #rain #nature #wildvines #leaves #foodchain #predators #consumers #producers #undergrowth #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #life #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #secunderabad #monsoonphotography #selfsacrifice