Author

GP Jürgens

Asteraceae

Cremanthodium palmatum

by GP Jürgens

Benth.

Sikkim2003 335 G472
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4100m August

Description

Cremanthodium palmatum is an alpine herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Sino-Himalayan mountains, recorded in GBIF (about 330 occurrences) from China, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Taiwan. It inhabits moist alpine meadows, streamsides, seepage slopes and rocky turf, generally between 3500 and 4500 m, where late-summer monsoon moisture sustains lush herbaceous growth. The photographed population at Saniti Lake in Sikkim at 4100 m in August typifies its preferred high-elevation, snowmelt-fed habitat, flowering as the brief alpine summer reaches its peak.

It is a perennial with a short rhizome and fibrous roots, producing erect, somewhat glandular-hairy stems. The basal leaves are long-petiolate and palmately lobed or divided, the blade reniform to orbicular in outline with toothed segments, recalling the foliage of a buttercup; the stem leaves are reduced and sessile upwards. The capitula are usually solitary and nodding, characteristic of the genus, with broad campanulate involucres of subequal, often dark-margined bracts. The ray florets are yellow, ligulate and spreading, surrounding numerous yellow tubular disc florets; the fruit is a cylindrical, glabrous achene crowned by a pappus of fine white bristles.

Cremanthodium belongs to tribe Senecioneae of the Asteraceae and is closely allied to Ligularia and Parasenecio, distinguished by its predominantly nodding, solitary alpine capitula. The genus is centred on the Hengduan Shan and eastern Himalaya, where rapid diversification has accompanied uplift and glacial cycling, making C. palmatum part of a characteristic high-alpine endemic radiation. Restricted to specialised cold, wet habitats but locally frequent across its range, it is not regarded as globally threatened, though such alpine specialists are sensitive to climatic warming.

Author: Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Good revision of Cremanthodium

Asteraceae

Cremanthodium reniforme

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Benth. 

BhutanPG2011 282
Bhutan Jule-Tso, 4100m June
Sikkim2003 110 P149
Sikkim Dzongri 3900m August
Nepal 95 161 P262 ergebnis
Nepal Rupien La 3900m October
Nepal 99 619 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 4300m, July

Description

Cremanthodium reniforme is a high-alpine herb of the central and eastern Himalaya, distributed through Nepal, India (Sikkim), Bhutan and adjacent China; the 294 occurrences map a continuous Himalayan arc, with outlying records in New Zealand reflecting cultivated material. It grows on moist alpine meadows, rocky slopes, screes and streambanks, characteristically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The collated localities, from Bhutan's Jule-Tso at 4100 m and Sikkim's Dzongri at 3900 m to the Rupien La and the Kagmara-La in west Nepal at 3900–4300 m, span June to October, illustrating its strictly high-elevation distribution and protracted summer flowering in the snow-melt zone.

The species is a perennial herb with a short rhizome bearing fleshy roots and erect, often purplish, arachnoid scapose stems. The basal leaves are conspicuous, long-petiolate and reniform to cordate-orbicular, with a palmately veined, dentate blade; the cauline leaves are few and reduced. The capitula are large, solitary and nodding, radiate, with an involucre of blackish-hairy phyllaries. The ray florets are female and golden-yellow, the disc florets tubular and yellow. The cypselae are oblong and glabrous, bearing a pappus of soft, brownish or whitish barbellate bristles roughly equalling the corolla.

Cremanthodium is a Sino-Himalayan genus of about seventy species centred on the Hengduan Shan and Himalaya, segregated from Ligularia chiefly by its solitary nodding capitula, an adaptation that shields pollen and developing achenes from rain and intense alpine radiation. The reniform basal leaves make C. reniforme distinctive among its congeners. Restricted to high alpine habitats yet wide-ranging, it is not currently regarded as threatened, though such species are sensitive to climatic warming and upslope habitat compression.

Author: (DC.) Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Good Revision of Cremanthodium

Amaryllidaceae

Crinum amoenum

by GP Jürgens

Roxb. ex Ker Gawl.

Bh09 390 G617
Bhutan Mo-Chu, 1500m June

Description

Crinum amoenum is a bulbous herb of the Himalayan foothills and adjacent Southeast Asia, distributed across India, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand and Myanmar, with about 51 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF. It grows in moist grassland, forest clearings, stream banks and damp open ground in the subtropical lower montane belt, generally below about 1800 m, flowering with the onset of the summer monsoon. The plant illustrated was photographed along the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at about 1500 m in June, a characteristic riverine setting where it favours seasonally moist, humus-rich soils.

The species arises from a large, ovoid, tunicate bulb bearing a distinct neck, from which spring several strap-shaped, channelled leaves with somewhat undulate margins. The leafless flowering scape carries a terminal umbel of a few to several fragrant flowers subtended by membranous spathe bracts. Each flower has a slender, elongate perianth tube opening into six narrow, spreading to recurved tepals that are white, often flushed or striped with rose-pink along the keel, with six declinate stamens bearing versatile anthers and an inferior ovary. The fruit is an irregularly dehiscing capsule containing a few large, fleshy seeds.

Crinum (Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae) is a pantropical genus of bulbous geophytes whose tissues contain isoquinoline (crinine-type) alkaloids of pharmacological interest and considerable toxicity. The strongly scented, trumpet-shaped flowers are adapted to pollination by long-tongued moths and other nocturnal visitors, and several species are cultivated as ornamentals. Though not formally assessed as threatened, its lowland riparian and grassland habitats are vulnerable to agricultural conversion, drainage and bulb collection.

Author: Roxb. ex Ker Gawl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of British India, Flora of Bhutan, Nordal Revision of African and Asian Crinum

Fabaceae

Crotalaria bhutanica

by GP Jürgens

Thoth.

Bhutan2012 190
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3300m September
Bhutan2012 362
Bhutan Dochu-La 2700m, September

Description

Crotalaria bhutanica is a narrowly distributed legume of the eastern Himalaya, described from and centred on Bhutan; it has no georeferenced records in GBIF, underscoring how poorly documented and locally restricted this taxon remains. It is a plant of open grassy slopes, scrub and disturbed montane ground, and the two collection sites given, the Haar valley at about 3300 m and Dochu-La at 2700 m, both in September, place it in the cool temperate to subalpine zone of western and central Bhutan, where it flowers and fruits in the late monsoon and early autumn.

Like others of its genus, the species is a herb or small subshrub with simple or trifoliolate leaves and stems bearing the appressed hairs characteristic of Crotalaria. The flowers are arranged in terminal or leaf-opposed racemes and have the typical papilionaceous structure of the genus, with a large rounded standard, two lateral wings and a beaked keel enclosing the stamens and style; the corolla is yellow, sometimes veined or flushed with brown or purple. The fruit, as in all Crotalaria, is an inflated, bladder-like pod in which the loosened seeds rattle when ripe, the feature that gives the genus its name (from the Greek krotalon, a rattle).

Crotalaria (tribe Crotalarieae, subfamily Faboideae) is a large pantropical genus, and C. bhutanica is one of its restricted Himalayan endemics, distinguished within the regional flora by its combination of habit, indumentum and floral detail. Like most papilionoid legumes it forms nitrogen-fixing root nodules with rhizobia and is pollinated by bees adapted to tripping the keel mechanism. Given its apparently very limited range, the absence of occurrence data, and ongoing pressures on Himalayan grassland habitats, the species warrants targeted survey and a formal conservation assessment.

Author: Thoth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Polhill Crotalaria in Africa and Madagascar, Legumes of the World (Lewis et al.)

Fabaceae

Crotalaria cytisoides

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 822 Kopie
Bhutan Trongsa 2100m, October
Bhutan2012 823
Bhutan Trongsa 2100m, October

Description

Crotalaria cytisoides is a shrubby rattlepod of the Himalaya and into Southeast Asia. GBIF records it from China, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Bhutan, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia, with further occurrences extending to Madagascar and Uganda, totalling over 400 records. It grows on open hill slopes, scrub, grassy banks, forest margins and roadsides at lower to middle elevations, broadly between 1000 and 2700 m. The plant shown was photographed near Trongsa in central Bhutan at 2100 m in October, flowering in the post-monsoon period along the warm temperate hill zone where this species is a frequent component of disturbed scrub.

It is a much-branched shrub or undershrub with silky-pubescent young branches. The leaves are trifoliolate, the obovate to elliptic leaflets softly hairy beneath, subtended by small stipules. The flowers are borne in terminal and leaf-opposed racemes; the papilionaceous corolla is yellow, sometimes veined or flushed reddish-brown on the standard, with the keel beaked as is typical of the genus. The fruit is an inflated, oblong legume in which the loosened ripe seeds rattle when shaken, the feature giving Crotalaria its English name rattlepod.

Crotalaria is a large pantropical legume genus, and like its relatives it forms root nodules with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, enriching poor soils and contributing to its success as a coloniser of disturbed ground. Many species, including this one, contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids that deter herbivores and can be toxic to livestock. With its wide distribution, ruderal tendency and abundant seed production, C. cytisoides is common and of no conservation concern across its broad range.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, A revision of the genus Crotalaria (Leguminosae)

Fabaceae

Crotalaria sessiliflora

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 625
Bhutan Wangdi 2800m, September

Description

Crotalaria sessiliflora is a wide-ranging Asian-Australasian rattlepod, recorded by GBIF (3102 occurrences) from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, Bhutan, Malaysia and Indochina. It is a plant of open, sunny, seasonally dry habitats, occupying grasslands, hill slopes, fallow fields, roadsides and waste ground from the lowlands up into the lower mountains, roughly to 2800 m. The photographed plant from near Wangdi in western Bhutan at about 2800 m, flowering in September, sits at the upper elevational margin of the species and reflects its late-monsoon flowering across the eastern Himalaya.

The species is an erect annual herb, usually 30-100 cm tall, with stems and foliage clothed in long, spreading brownish hairs. The leaves are simple (unifoliolate), narrowly linear to oblanceolate, sessile or shortly petiolate, with conspicuous setose stipules. The flowers are borne in dense, head-like or short terminal racemes, often crowded and almost sessile as the epithet indicates, each subtended by leafy bracts. The papilionate corolla is blue, violet or pale purple, the standard hairy outside. As in Crotalaria the stamens are monadelphous with dimorphic anthers. The fruit is a small, inflated, oblong pod enclosed by the persistent calyx, the loose seeds rattling within when ripe.

Described by Linnaeus, the species belongs to the large pantropical genus Crotalaria (Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Crotalarieae). Like its relatives it forms root nodules with rhizobial bacteria, fixing atmospheric nitrogen and enriching soils, and is sometimes grown as a green manure. The plant contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids and is used in traditional Asian medicine, though these compounds render it potentially toxic to livestock. With an extensive range and weedy tendencies it is of least conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Monograph of the genus Crotalaria (Polhill)

Fabaceae

Crotalaria tetragona

by GP Jürgens

Andrews

Bhutan2012 1148
Bhutan Trashiyangtse 1780m, October

Description

Crotalaria tetragona Andrews is a tall rattlepod widely distributed across tropical and subtropical Asia, native from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh through southern China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Malesian region; GBIF lists about 405 occurrences, with records from Brazil, Jamaica, Colombia and Mauritius indicating introduction and naturalisation. It grows in open grassland, forest margins, scrub and disturbed roadside ground in the warm subtropical and submontane zone, generally below about 2000 m. The photographed plant from Trashiyangtse in eastern Bhutan at around 1780 m, flowering in October, reflects its occurrence in warm, lower-elevation valley habitats.

The species is a robust erect perennial herb or subshrub with conspicuously four-angled, often winged stems, the epithet tetragona alluding to this quadrangular form. The leaves are simple, elliptic to lanceolate and entire. The flowers are borne in long terminal racemes and are large and bright yellow, with the standard frequently veined reddish-brown; the calyx is deeply lobed and the keel beaked in the papilionaceous arrangement. The fruit is a large, inflated, oblong pod that turns blackish and rattles when the loose seeds detach at maturity, giving the genus its common name.

Crotalaria (Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Crotalarieae) is a large pantropical genus of nitrogen-fixing legumes, several used as green manure and fibre plants. C. tetragona is locally common and weedy, of least conservation concern, and like its congeners may contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids rendering it toxic to livestock.

Author: Andrews · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Polhill monograph Crotalaria in Africa and Asia

Brassicaceae

Crucihimalaya himalaica

by GP Jürgens

(Edgew.) Al-Shehbaz, O’Kane & R.A.Price

Bh09 187 G324
Bhutan Phajoding, 3700m June
Nepal 99 155 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3400m, June

Description

Crucihimalaya himalaica is a widespread alpine crucifer of the High Asian mountains, strongly represented in GBIF with about 704 occurrences spanning India, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Iran and Myanmar. It is a plant of open, often disturbed high-elevation ground, growing on stony slopes, screes, moraine, grazed turf, fallow and the margins of cultivation in the subalpine and alpine belts. The plants photographed at Phajoding in Bhutan at about 3700 m and south of Rara Lake in West Nepal at 3400 m, both in June, illustrate its characteristic occupation of open alpine slopes early in the growing season across the breadth of the range.

It is an annual to short-lived perennial herb with a basal rosette of oblanceolate to spathulate leaves bearing toothed or lyrate-pinnatifid margins, the herbage often clothed in branched (stellate or dendritic) and simple hairs. The erect, sparingly leafy stems terminate in racemes of small flowers with four free sepals and four white to pale lilac petals arranged in the cruciform pattern of the family, and six stamens in the usual tetradynamous arrangement. The fruit is a slender, linear, elongate silique that ascends to spreading and dehisces by two valves from a persistent septum to release the seeds.

The genus Crucihimalaya was segregated from Arabis and allied genera on molecular and morphological grounds by Al-Shehbaz, O'Kane and R.A.Price, and it is closely related to Arabidopsis, making the group of interest in comparative and evolutionary genomics. As an abundant, ecologically flexible species thriving in both natural and anthropogenically disturbed alpine habitats, C. himalaica is of no conservation concern, and its wide range reflects effective dispersal and tolerance of harsh, open mountain conditions.

Author: (Edgew.) Al-Shehbaz, O'Kane & R.A.Price · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Al-Shehbaz Brassicaceae of the Himalaya

Hypoxidaceae

Curculigo gracilis

by GP Jürgens

Kurz

Nepal 97 612 P1183
Nepal Godavari 1400m, May
Nepal 97 613 P1184
Nepal Godavari 1400m, May

Description

Curculigo gracilis Kurz (accepted by some authorities as Molineria gracilis, under which name the species page is filed) is a small rhizomatous herb of the Hypoxidaceae distributed through the eastern Himalaya and into Southeast Asia. GBIF records, numbering 70 occurrences, span China, Thailand, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia and Vietnam. The species grows in the shaded, humid understorey of subtropical and lower montane broadleaved forests, on moist, humus-rich banks and slopes, generally between roughly 700 and 1,800 m. The illustrated plant from Godavari near Kathmandu in Nepal at 1,400 m, in May, is typical of this damp mid-hill forest habitat.

The plant arises from a short, tuberous, vertical rhizome and produces a small tuft of basal leaves. The leaves are linear-lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, plicate (longitudinally pleated) and conspicuously veined, tapering to a slender petiole-like base and often thinly hairy. The flowers are borne on short, often subterranean to ground-level scapes hidden among the leaf bases; each flower is small, bright yellow, with six spreading tepals, and the ovary is inferior and frequently prolonged into a slender beak, a diagnostic feature of the genus. The fruit is a small, fleshy, indehiscent berry-like capsule containing black, often beaked seeds.

The generic limits of Curculigo and the segregate Molineria have long been disputed, and this species is treated under both names depending on the classification followed; the disposition adopted here follows the source page in recognising Molineria gracilis as the accepted combination. As a forest-floor geophyte of humid Asian woodlands, it is of no particular conservation concern across its range, but it contributes to the diversity of the shaded understorey and is part of a genus of modest economic and ethnobotanical interest in tropical Asia.

Author: Kurz · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Geerinck: Hypoxidaceae studies

Zingiberacaea

Curcuma aromatica

by GP Jürgens

Salisb.

Bhutan2014 285
Bhutan Trithangebe near a farmhouse 800m, May
Nepal1992 189 P276 ergebnis
Nepal Banyang 2100m March 
Nepal1992 190 P277 ergebnis
Nepal Banyang 2100m March 
Nepal 2001 30 ergebnis ergebnis
East-Nepal Korong 1150m, April

Description

Curcuma aromatica, wild or yellow zedoary, is a South and Southeast Asian rhizomatous herb with a broad distribution documented by 490 GBIF occurrences across China (CN), India (IN), Hong Kong (HK), Bhutan (BT), Sri Lanka (LK), Myanmar (MM), Thailand (TH), Nepal (NP), Vietnam (VN), Bangladesh (BD), Laos (LA), Pakistan (PK), Indonesia (ID), Korea (KR), Malaysia (MY) and Taiwan (TW), with cultivated records in Japan (JP), Colombia (CO) and Britain (GB). It grows in moist deciduous and semi-evergreen forest, scrub and forest margins, often near habitation as a semi-cultivated medicinal plant. The illustrated collections span Bhutan at Trithangebe near a farmhouse at 800 m in May and the Nepalese sites of Banyang at 2100 m in March and Korong in East-Nepal at 1150 m in April.

It is a stout perennial arising from a fleshy, aromatic, internally orange-yellow rhizome bearing sessile and stalked tubers. The pseudostem supports large oblong to oblong-lanceolate leaves, pubescent beneath. The inflorescence appears before or with the leaves as a lateral spike, its lower fertile bracts green and the upper sterile coma bracts tinged pink to rose; the flowers are pale yellow with a tubular calyx, a hooded dorsal corolla lobe and a deflexed, emarginate yellow labellum. Fruit is a capsule, though spread is mainly clonal.

Widely employed in traditional medicine and as a cosmetic and culinary turmeric substitute, C. aromatica is rich in aromatic essential oils and curcuminoids. It is frequently confused with C. zedoaria, from which it differs in floral and rhizome characters. The family is cited verbatim as Zingiberacaea (Zingiberaceae).

Author: Salisb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Revision of the genus Curcuma (Skornickova et al.)