Author

GP Jürgens

Acanthaceae

Eranthemum purpurascens

by GP Jürgens

Wight ex Nees

Nepal1992 81 P114 ergebnis
Nepal Sokathum1650m, March 

Description

Eranthemum purpurascens is a subtropical understorey shrub of the Himalayan foothills and adjacent Indian subcontinent, recorded principally from India and Nepal, with cultivated and naturalised occurrences in China, Indonesia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the United States reflecting its ornamental use. It grows in the shaded understorey of moist subtropical and lower temperate forest, along streambanks and shaded ravines, generally between about 600 and 1800 m. The photographed plant from Sokathum, Nepal, at roughly 1650 m and flowering in March, exemplifies its early-spring blooming in warm, sheltered hill forest before the onset of the monsoon.

The plant is an erect, soft-wooded shrub with quadrangular, often swollen-nodal stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to elliptic, acuminate, entire to obscurely crenate, and frequently bear cystoliths visible as fine streaks on the lamina. The flowers are borne in dense terminal and axillary spikes subtended by conspicuous, often purple-tinged bracts. Each flower has a slender corolla tube expanding into a spreading five-lobed limb of pale blue to violet, with two exserted stamens; the fruit is a clavate, explosively dehiscent capsule bearing seeds on hooked retinacula typical of the Acanthaceae.

The epithet purpurascens refers to the purplish bracts and flushed foliage. Eranthemum is a tropical Asian genus allied to Pseuderanthemum and Daedalacanthus, several members of which, including this species, are cultivated for their winter and spring colour. The conspicuous bracts and tubular blue corollas are adapted to insect pollination, while the cystolith-bearing leaves are a diagnostic family feature. The species is locally common and not regarded as threatened.

Author: Wight ex Nees · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Acanthaceae of the Indian Subcontinent

Aristolochiaceae

Eria clausa

by GP Jürgens

King & Pantl.

Bhutan2014 175
Bhutan Trashiyangtse 2000m, May

Description

Eria clausa King & Pantl. is an epiphytic orchid of the subtribe Eriinae (Orchidaceae), distributed through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent regions. GBIF records (78 occurrences) document its presence in China, Vietnam, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and New Guinea, indicating a broadly Sino-Himalayan to Southeast Asian range. The species was photographed at Trashiyangtse in Bhutan at 2,000 m in May, a setting typical of its occurrence in humid, mossy broad-leaved and mixed evergreen forests, where it grows on tree trunks and branches at montane elevations between roughly 1,500 and 2,500 m.

The plant produces clustered, fleshy pseudobulbs from a short rhizome, each bearing a few coriaceous, oblong to lanceolate leaves at the apex. The inflorescence is a short, few- to several-flowered raceme arising near the pseudobulb apex; the flowers are small, whitish to pale yellow, and remain only partly opening, a feature reflected in the epithet "clausa" (closed). The lip is trilobed and the column is short and footed, conforming to the structural plan of the Eria alliance.

The genus Eria has been substantially redefined following molecular work, with many former species transferred to segregate genera; the placement of clausa should therefore be read against this ongoing reorganisation of the Eriinae. As an epiphyte dependent on intact, humid forest canopy, the species is sensitive to logging and forest degradation, and like all orchids it is listed under CITES Appendix II, regulating international trade.

Author: King & Pantl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 25, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Pearce & Cribb: The Orchids of Bhutan (2002)

Asteraceae

Erigeron bellidioides 

by GP Jürgens

(Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) Benth. ex C.B.Clarke

Nepal 97 284 G577
Nepal Chamtrug 2550m May
Nepal 97 284 G577
Nepal Chamtrug 2550m May

Description

Erigeron bellidioides is a small fleabane of the Western and Central Himalaya, with verified GBIF occurrences confined to Pakistan, Nepal and India. It is a plant of open grassy slopes, forest clearings, banks and stony pastures through the temperate zone, generally between about 1800 and 3000 m. The material photographed at Chamtrug in central Nepal at around 2550 m in May illustrates its flowering at the onset of the growing season in just such open montane grassland, where it forms low, daisy-like tufts among the sward.

The species is a low perennial or short-lived herb forming a basal rosette of obovate to spathulate, entire or slightly toothed leaves that, as the epithet bellidioides suggests, recall those of a daisy (Bellis). The stems are slender, sparingly leafy and finely hairy, each typically bearing a solitary terminal capitulum. The involucre is hemispherical with narrow, hairy phyllaria in a few rows; the head carries numerous slender, thread-like ray florets that are white, pink or pale lilac surrounding a disc of yellow tubular florets. The fruit is a small flattened achene crowned by a pappus of fine bristles that facilitates wind dispersal.

Within Erigeron, a large genus easily confused with related Aster, this species is distinguished by its rosette habit, narrow many-rayed heads and Himalayan distribution; it was transferred to the genus by C.B. Clarke from a Buchanan-Hamilton and Don basionym. Ecologically it behaves as a pioneer of open and disturbed ground and provides a nectar and pollen source for generalist insects. It is widespread and locally common in suitable grassland and is not regarded as being of conservation concern.

Author: (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) Benth. ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Flora of British India

Asteraceae

Erigeron karvinskianus

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Sikkim2004 3 G4
Sikkim West-Bengal, Sambon 1750m April
Sikkim2004 4 P5
Sikkim West-Bengal, Sambon 1750m April

Description

Erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican fleabane, is a sprawling daisy native to Mexico and Central America but now naturalised across much of the temperate and subtropical world. GBIF documents it from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Japan and India, among many others, with over 67,000 occurrences reflecting its status as a cosmopolitan introduced species. It colonises walls, rocky banks, paths, terraces and disturbed slopes from sea level to about 2500 m. The plant illustrated was photographed near Sambon in the Sikkim/West Bengal hills at 1750 m in April, where it has become established as a garden escape along walls and roadsides.

It is a slender, much-branched, mat-forming perennial with wiry, decumbent to ascending stems. The lower leaves are oblanceolate and few-toothed or trilobed, the upper entire and reduced. The numerous small capitula are borne on slender peduncles; each head has a single series of narrow ray florets that open white and age through pink to purplish-red, so that a plant simultaneously bears flowers of several hues, surrounding a central disc of yellow tubular florets. The fruit is a small ribbed achene crowned by a pappus of fine bristles that facilitates wind dispersal.

A member of tribe Astereae, E. karvinskianus is valued horticulturally for its long, profuse flowering and self-seeding habit, the very trait underlying its weediness. In parts of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa it is regarded as an invasive environmental weed escaping gardens to colonise native rock and cliff habitats. In the Himalaya it is a naturalised alien rather than an indigenous element, of no conservation interest but of some invasion-ecology concern.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of North America, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Erigeron (Asteraceae: Astereae) systematic monograph

Asteraceae

Erigeron multiradiatus

by GP Jürgens

(Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f.

BhutanPG2011 371
Bhutan Dur-Tso, 4000m June
Sikkim2003 429 G596
Sikkim Chopta Valley 4100m August

Description

Erigeron multiradiatus (Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f. is a Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan fleabane distributed through China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bhutan, with around 1400 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of alpine and subalpine meadows, open grassy slopes, rocky ground and forest clearings, generally between about 2700 and 4500 m. The collections from Dur-Tso at 4000 m in June and the Chopta valley in Sikkim at 4100 m in August are characteristic of its high-altitude summer flowering across the central and eastern Himalaya.

It is a tufted perennial herb arising from a short rhizome, with erect, simple or sparingly branched stems bearing spreading hairs. The basal leaves are oblanceolate to spatulate, narrowed to a petiole and entire to slightly toothed, forming a rosette; the cauline leaves are smaller, sessile and clasping. The solitary or few terminal capitula are large and showy, with an involucre of narrow, hairy, somewhat purplish phyllaries; the numerous, very fine ray florets, alluded to in the epithet multiradiatus, are pinkish-purple to violet and surround a central disc of yellow tubular florets. The fruit is a small, compressed, hairy cypsela topped by a double pappus of fine bristles.

Erigeron is a large, taxonomically intricate genus, and the densely many-rayed alpine Himalayan species form a distinctive assemblage within it, recognised by their broad showy heads and high-elevation habitat. A widespread and locally common alpine herb, E. multiradiatus is of no particular conservation concern, though it is valued horticulturally and in regional traditional medicine.

Author: (Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Grierson & Long Flora of Bhutan Compositae account

Rosaceae

Eriobotrya petiolata

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

Bhutan2014 274
Bhutan Trithangebe 700m, May
Bhutan2014 276
Bhutan Trithangebe 700m, May

Description

Eriobotrya petiolata is a small evergreen tree of the eastern Himalayan and Indo-Burmese subtropical forests, recorded from India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and China, with cultivated or vagrant records noted from Spain and the United States among the 62 GBIF occurrences. It inhabits warm broadleaved and subtropical hill forest at relatively low elevations. The photographed tree at Trithangebe in southern Bhutan at only 700 m, flowering in May, typifies its preference for humid, frost-free montane foothills well below the alpine plants that dominate the region's high passes.

The species is a tree with stout petiolate leaves, the feature underlying its epithet. The leaves are coriaceous, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, with a prominent reticulate venation, an acuminate apex, and a margin that is entire to remotely serrate; young growth and the lower surface are typically clothed in rusty tomentum that weathers with age. The inflorescence is a terminal, much-branched, woolly panicle of small white flowers, each with five sepals, five petals, numerous stamens and an inferior ovary. The fruit is a small pome, fleshy at maturity and crowned by the persistent calyx, characteristic of the loquat genus.

GBIF treats the himalayaflora name as a synonym, with Eriobotrya petiolata (Hook.f.) the accepted entity in this dataset; the genus Eriobotrya is itself often submerged within Rhaphiolepis (and broadly within subfamily Maloideae of Rosaceae) in recent molecular treatments, so nomenclature remains in flux. Ecologically the fleshy pomes are dispersed by birds and mammals. As a forest tree of a comparatively restricted Himalayan-Burmese range, it is most threatened by lowland deforestation rather than by any intrinsic rarity.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Rosaceae), Vidal Eriobotrya revision

Ranunculaceae

Eriocapitella rivularis

by GP Jürgens

(Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Christenh. & Byng

Bh09 197 P337
Bhutan above Thimphu, 3000m June
Bh09 68 P118
Bhutan above Thimphu, 3000m June
Nepal 99 169 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Tara-Lake 3000m, June

Description

Eriocapitella rivularis (formerly Anemone rivularis) is a widely distributed montane herb of the Sino-Himalayan region. GBIF records span China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Pakistan, extending to Sri Lanka, with introduced or cultivated occurrences in Europe, Japan and North America, totalling close to 2000 georeferenced collections. It favours moist alpine and subalpine meadows, stream banks, open slopes and forest margins, generally between 2000 and 4200 m. The populations illustrated here were photographed above Thimphu in Bhutan and south of Tara-Lake in West Nepal, both at around 3000 m and flowering in June, typical of its early-summer phenology in the central Himalaya.

It is an erect perennial 20-80 cm tall arising from a stout rootstock, the stems and petioles clothed in spreading white hairs. Basal leaves are long-petiolate and palmately 3-5-lobed, the segments coarsely toothed and bristly. The inflorescence is a lax cyme subtended by a leafy involucre of sessile bracts. Flowers are showy, with 5-6 white petaloid sepals often tinged bluish on the reverse and numerous stamens bearing conspicuous blue-violet anthers; true petals are absent. The fruit is an aggregate of flattened, narrowly winged achenes terminating in a slender hooked beak that aids epizoochorous dispersal.

The transfer to the segregate genus Eriocapitella reflects molecular work resolving the paraphyly of Anemone sensu lato. Pharmacologically it is notable as a source of triterpenoid saponins and is used in Himalayan folk medicine. Its broad ecological amplitude, abundant achene production and wind-aided dispersal render it locally common and of no conservation concern, a characteristic component of grazed Himalayan pasture.

Author: (Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Christenh. & Byng · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Monograph of the genus Anemone (Ranunculaceae)

Lamiaceae

Eriophyton wallichii

by GP Jürgens

Benth.

Sikkim2003 319 P458
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4300m August
Sikkim2003 322 P457
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4300m August

Description

Eriophyton wallichii is a high-alpine perennial of the central and eastern Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Afghanistan, with some 605 georeferenced occurrences documented in GBIF. It is a characteristic plant of open screes, moraines and frost-heaved gravels of the upper alpine and subnival zones, typically between 3500 and 5000 m, where the growing season is brief. The photograph from the Saniti Lake area of Sikkim at about 4300 m in August captures the species in its preferred scree habitat at the height of the short montane summer.

The plant forms a stout, deeply buried rhizome from which arise short, ascending stems almost entirely concealed by the foliage. The most conspicuous feature is the dense covering of long, silky white woolly hairs that envelop the upper leaves, an adaptation buffering the flowers against cold and excessive radiation. The leaves are opposite, broadly ovate to suborbicular, becoming progressively larger and more densely lanate upward, where the uppermost pairs form a protective bracteal cup. The bilabiate flowers are borne in the axils of these terminal leaves, with a tubular calyx and a pink to purplish corolla whose lower lip is spreading; the fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed within the persistent calyx.

The genus Eriophyton sensu lato (incorporating elements formerly placed in Alajja and Stachyopsis) is a small, distinctly Sino-Himalayan group of the Lamiaceae adapted to the harshest alpine environments. The pronounced indumentum exemplifies the convergent woolliness seen in unrelated subnival cushion and scree plants such as Saussurea and Soroseris. Long valued in Tibetan and Himalayan ethnomedicine, E. wallichii remains locally frequent across its broad range and is not presently considered threatened, though its specialised scree habitat is sensitive to glacial retreat and shifting alpine climates.

Author: Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Harley et al. Labiatae in The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants

Fabaceae

Erythrina arborescens

by GP Jürgens

Roxb.

Bhutan2015 65
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 1900m, October
Bhutan2012 464
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September

Description

Erythrina arborescens is a Himalayan to Southeast Asian coral tree distributed across China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Japan and Thailand, with about 369 GBIF occurrences spanning this wide subtropical to warm-temperate range. It grows in open broad-leaved forest, forest margins, valley slopes and disturbed ground, generally from about 1300 to 3000 m. The trees photographed near Wangdi Phodrang in Bhutan at about 1900 m in October and at about 2500 m in September illustrate its mid-elevation valley habitat, where its scarlet flower spikes appear after the leaves toward the close of the monsoon.

The species is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree with a stout trunk and branches armed with scattered conical prickles. The leaves are alternate and trifoliolate, with broadly ovate to rhombic leaflets, the terminal one largest, on a long prickly petiole. The inflorescence is a dense terminal raceme of large, showy, bright red papilionaceous flowers in which the broad standard petal is conspicuously enlarged while the wings and keel are reduced, an arrangement adapted to bird pollination. The fruit is an elongate, torulose, dehiscent legume constricted between the few shining red-brown seeds.

Erythrina is a pantropical genus of about 130 species notable for ornithophilous, nectar-rich flowers and seeds containing toxic isoquinoline alkaloids. E. arborescens is among the few species extending into temperate Himalayan elevations, its post-monsoon flowering and copious nectar attracting sunbirds and other nectarivorous birds that serve as pollinators. Widely distributed and tolerant of disturbance, it is of least concern; it is locally valued as a shade and ornamental tree and features in traditional medicine across its range.

Author: Roxb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Krukoff & Barneby studies of Erythrina

Fabaceae

Erythrina stricta

by GP Jürgens

Roxb.

Nepal1992 23 P32 ergebnis
Nepal Kharang 1250m March 
Nepal1992 84 P118 ergebnis
Nepal Kharang 1250m, March 

Description

Erythrina stricta Roxb. is a deciduous coral tree widely distributed across tropical and subtropical Asia, recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines; its GBIF dataset of 346 occurrences reflects both wild populations and frequent planting. It occurs in open subtropical forest, forest margins, scrub and along cultivated land in the foothills, broadly from the lowlands to about 1500 m. The photographed tree at Kharang in Nepal at about 1250 m, flowering in March, exemplifies its dry-season, leafless flowering in the warm subtropical hill zone of the outer Himalaya, conspicuous as a flush of scarlet bloom on bare branches.

The species is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree with a straight bole and armed branches bearing scattered conical prickles. The leaves are alternate and trifoliolate with broadly ovate to deltoid, entire leaflets, the terminal one rhombic-ovate and larger than the laterals; they are typically shed before flowering. The inflorescence is a dense, erect, terminal raceme of showy papilionaceous flowers; the large, bright scarlet to crimson standard is narrow and nearly straight, much exceeding the small keel and wings, and the nectar-rich flowers attract birds. The fruit is an elongate, torulose, constricted legume that splits to release several reddish, bean-like seeds.

Erythrina (Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae) is a pantropical genus of bird-pollinated coral trees; E. stricta belongs to the Asian assemblage with erect, narrow-standard flowers on leafless branches. It is widely planted as an ornamental, shade and support tree and as a living fence, and its bark and seeds contain Erythrina alkaloids of pharmacological interest. Broadly distributed, fast-growing and commonly cultivated, it is of no conservation concern and serves ecologically as an early dry-season nectar source for birds and insects.

Author: Roxb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of British India, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Krukoff & Barneby — Conspectus of the genus Erythrina