Wall.
Description
Onosma bracteata Wall. is a bristly perennial herb of the western and central Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (83 occurrences) from Nepal, India and Turkey, though its core range lies along the high inner-Himalayan valleys. It occupies dry, open, stony slopes, rocky pasture and the margins of subalpine scrub on calcareous or schistose substrates, flowering through the early monsoon. The cited collections from west Nepal, south of Rara Lake at 3700 m in June and at Bauli Khola at 3600 m in July, place it firmly in the high-altitude steppe and meadow zone where it forms scattered clumps on sun-exposed ground. The name is treated here as a synonym, with Onosma bracteata recognised as the accepted name.
The plant forms tufted, ascending to erect stems clothed throughout in stiff, spreading, tuberculate-based setae that give a harsh, hispid texture. The leaves are sessile, oblong-lanceolate to linear, entire and likewise bristly on both surfaces. Flowers are aggregated in terminal, scorpioid cymes subtended by conspicuous leafy bracts, from which the epithet derives; the corolla is tubular-campanulate, yellow, with a five-toothed limb and exserted anthers, and the gynoecium develops into four smooth nutlets enclosed by the persistent calyx.
Within the large Old World genus Onosma, the bracteate, yellow-flowered Himalayan species form a taxonomically intricate complex requiring careful comparison of indumentum and bract characters. Several Onosma yield a red dye (alkannin-type pigments) from their roots and have ethnobotanical and medicinal uses across the region. The species is not assessed as threatened, but its restriction to specialised dry montane habitats makes local populations vulnerable to grazing pressure and trampling.
Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of British India (Hooker), Boraginaceae of the Western Himalaya, Riedl monograph on Onosma