Author

GP Jürgens

Orchideaceae

Goodyera fusca

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 457 K631.2
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3900m August

Description

Goodyera fusca is a terrestrial orchid of the higher Himalaya, ranging through Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar (NP, CN, BT, IN, MM), with about 101 recorded occurrences. It grows in cool, shaded humus among mossy rocks, in subalpine Rhododendron and conifer thickets and at the upper forest margin, generally in the upper temperate to subalpine zone. The plant illustrated was found in the Chopta Valley of Sikkim at 3900 m in August, an elevation and late-summer flowering period typical of the species, where it occupies damp, sheltered pockets of leaf litter and bryophyte cover beneath open scrub near the treeline.

It is a small, erect herb arising from a creeping, fleshy, few-noded rhizome rooting at the nodes. The leaves are few and clustered toward the stem base, ovate to elliptic, somewhat fleshy, and in many populations marked with the reticulate veining characteristic of the 'jewel orchids'. The inflorescence is an erect, glandular-pubescent spike bearing a secund to spiralled series of small, dull brownish to greenish flowers, each subtended by a lanceolate bract. The dorsal sepal and petals are connivent to form a hood over the column, the lateral sepals spreading, and the saccate, concave lip lacks a free spur. The fruit is a small, erect, ribbed capsule releasing dust-fine seeds.

Goodyera (subtribe Goodyerinae, tribe Cranichideae of the Orchidaceae) is a chiefly Asian genus of forest-floor orchids whose germination and establishment depend on association with mycorrhizal fungi. The small, drab, nectar-bearing flowers are pollinated by small bees and other insects, and the minute seeds are wind-dispersed. As an obligately mycotrophic forest understorey orchid, G. fusca is vulnerable to disturbance of its humus-rich habitat, though across its wide Himalayan-Chinese range it is not currently regarded as threatened.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Genera Orchidacearum (Goodyerinae)

Orchideaceae

Gymnadenia orchidis

by GP Jürgens

Lindl.

BhutanPG2011 801 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3800m July
also included: Anaphalis busua (D.Don) DC. and Anemone demissa Hook.f. & Thomson
Nepal 99 371 ergebnis
West-Nepal Linji-Khola 3400m, June
Nepal 99 474 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3200m, June

Description

Gymnadenia orchidis is a terrestrial orchid of the Himalaya and adjacent China, distributed through China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Pakistan, with GBIF documenting some 795 occurrences. It is a plant of open alpine and subalpine meadows, grassy slopes, forest clearings and damp turf, growing in full sun to light shade on humus-rich soils. The species occupies the upper montane to alpine zone; the photographed material from the Chele-La pass in Bhutan at about 3800 m in July, sharing its habitat with Anaphalis busua and Anemone demissa, and from the Linji-Khola and Churta-Khola valleys of West Nepal at 3200-3400 m in June, illustrates its summer flowering across this high-elevation belt.

The plant arises from palmately lobed, fleshy root-tubers and bears an erect, leafy stem. The leaves are several, oblong to lanceolate, sheathing at the base and reduced upward to bracts. The inflorescence is a dense, cylindrical terminal spike of many small flowers, ranging in colour from purple and pink-magenta to occasionally white. Each flower has spreading lateral sepals, a hooded arrangement of the dorsal sepal and petals, and a trilobed labellum bearing a slender, decurved spur about equalling or shorter than the ovary, containing nectar. The pollinaria have naked, exposed viscidia characteristic of the genus. The fruit is a small, erect capsule.

The species belongs to Gymnadenia, a genus of nectar-spurred terrestrial orchids closely allied to Dactylorhiza and Platanthera; it has at times been segregated into Habenaria or treated under broader generic concepts, reflecting ongoing debate over the limits of the orchidine genera. Pollinated by long-tongued insects attracted to its spur nectar, it remains widespread and locally common in Himalayan alpine grasslands, although meadow degradation and grazing may affect individual populations.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, The Orchids of Sikkim and Bhutan (Pearce & Cribb)

Caryophyllaceae

Gypsophila cerastoides

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

BhutanPG2011 233
Bhutan Tsochenchen, 3650m June
Bhutan2014 512
Bhutan Tsochenchen, 3600m June

Description

Gypsophila cerastoides is a mat-forming Himalayan pink ranging across India, Nepal and Bhutan, with the remaining GBIF country codes (USA, Austria) representing cultivated and herbarium records; the dataset holds about 65 occurrences. It is an alpine and upper subalpine plant of open stony slopes, gravelly flats, short turf and rock crevices, typically between about 3000 and 4500 m. The cushions photographed at Tsochenchen in Bhutan at roughly 3600 to 3650 m in June occupy exactly this kind of well-drained, sunlit high-mountain ground where the species flowers early in the season.

It forms low, spreading mats or loose cushions from a branched woody rootstock. The numerous small leaves are oblong to spathulate, sessile, somewhat hairy and crowded, recalling those of a Cerastium, hence the epithet. The flowers are borne singly or in few-flowered cymes on short stalks; each has five white to pale lilac petals conspicuously veined with violet or purple lines and often notched at the apex, set against a campanulate, five-toothed calyx. There are ten stamens and two styles, and the fruit is a small capsule opening by teeth to release minute seeds.

Unusual among Gypsophila for its broad, prettily veined petals and prostrate alpine habit, G. cerastoides is widely grown as a rock-garden and trough plant in temperate horticulture, which accounts for its appearance in European and North American records. Its cushion growth form is a typical adaptation to high-altitude wind, frost and drought. The species is locally common over a wide Himalayan arc and is not regarded as threatened, although alpine grazing and warming-driven vegetation shifts could affect particular populations at the margins of its range.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Barkoudah Revision of the Genus Gypsophila

Orchideaceae

Habenaria pantlingiana

by GP Jürgens

Kraenzl.

Sikkim2003 35 G48
Sikkim above Yoksam 1880m 08.2003
Sikkim2003 34 W47
Sikkim above Yoksam 1880m 08.2003

Description

Habenaria pantlingiana is a terrestrial orchid distributed across the eastern Himalaya and East Asia, with GBIF records (322 occurrences) spanning Taiwan, Japan, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Vietnam. It grows in moist, humus-rich soils on shaded forest floors, grassy slopes and stream banks within warm-temperate and subtropical broad-leaved forest, broadly between 1000 and 2500 m. The documented plant from above Yoksam in western Sikkim at about 1880 m, flowering in August, reflects its summer-monsoon phenology, when the tuberous geophyte emerges and blooms during the period of maximum humidity and rainfall.

The plant arises from ovoid, fleshy underground tubers and produces an erect, leafy stem. The cauline leaves are oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, sheathing at the base, grading into bract-like organs above. The inflorescence is a many-flowered terminal raceme of small greenish to greenish-white flowers, each subtended by a narrow bract. As in Habenaria, the lip (labellum) is deeply three-lobed with slender, often filiform divisions, and bears a prominent slender spur arising at its base. The dorsal sepal and petals form a loose hood over the column, the lateral sepals spreading; the rostellum and stigmatic processes are characteristically elaborate. The fruit is a ribbed, dehiscent capsule releasing dust-like seeds.

Described by Kraenzlin and commemorating the Sikkim orchidologist R. Pantling, the species sits within the large, taxonomically intricate genus Habenaria (subfamily Orchidoideae, tribe Orchideae), where spur and lip lobing are key diagnostic features. Like most terrestrial orchids it depends on mycorrhizal fungi for germination and establishment, rendering it sensitive to forest disturbance. Although its wide range buffers it against global extinction, local populations are vulnerable to habitat loss and collection, and all wild orchids are CITES-listed.

Author: Kraenzl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, The Orchids of Sikkim-Himalaya (Pantling & King), Genera Orchidacearum (Pridgeon et al.)

Boraginaceae

Hackelia obtusifolia

by GP Jürgens

R.R.Mill

Bh09 180 P312
Bhutan Phajoding, 3600m June

Description

Hackelia obtusifolia is a Himalayan stickseed of restricted distribution, recorded from northern India, Bhutan and Nepal. GBIF documents only 14 occurrences across these three countries, indicating a localised and seldom-gathered species of the inner ranges. It grows on subalpine and alpine slopes, in open forest clearings, on rocky banks and among shrubberies on moist, humus-rich soils, broadly between about 3000 and 4000 m. The plant illustrated here was found in Bhutan at Phajoding at 3600 m in June, a high meadow and rhododendron-shrubland setting characteristic of its early-summer flowering in the eastern Himalaya.

The plant is an erect perennial herb with one or more branching, hispid stems arising from a woody rootstock. The leaves are alternate, the basal ones petiolate and the cauline ones sessile, oblong to obovate with an obtuse apex—the feature underlying the epithet—and clothed in stiff, appressed hairs. The inflorescence consists of lax, scorpioid cymes that elongate in fruit; the small flowers have a five-lobed calyx and a blue, rotate to shortly funnelform corolla with five conspicuous papillate scales (fornices) closing the throat. The fruit separates into four nutlets, each armed around the margin with glochidiate (barbed) prickles that effect epizoochorous dispersal.

Hackelia is distinguished within the tribe Cynoglosseae by its bordering of marginal glochids on the nutlets, contrasting with the wholly bristly nutlets of Cynoglossum. The barbed fruits cling readily to fur and clothing, an effective dispersal strategy in alpine grazing habitats. As a narrow Himalayan endemic known from very few collections, H. obtusifolia is poorly understood ecologically; its limited records suggest it warrants further survey, though its remote montane habitat affords some natural protection.

Author: R.R.Mill · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, An Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, A Revision of the Asiatic Species of Hackelia (Boraginaceae)

Amaryllidaceae

Haemanthus coccineus

by GP Jürgens

L.

Sikkim2003 550 P773
Sikkim Gangtok 1750m August

Description

Haemanthus coccineus is a bulbous geophyte native to the winter-rainfall regions of South Africa and Namibia, where the overwhelming majority of its more than three thousand records originate; the further occurrences in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Europe represent cultivation and naturalisation. In its homeland it grows on rocky slopes, in sandy or stony soils and seasonally dry scrub of the Cape, flowering in late summer to autumn after the foliage has died back. The plant photographed at Gangtok in Sikkim at 1750 m in August is a cultivated specimen well outside the species' natural range, the Himalaya being far removed from its Mediterranean-climate African home.

The plant arises from a large, flattened, fleshy bulb. It typically produces only two (occasionally more) broad, strap-shaped, prostrate leaves that lie flat on the ground, often spotted or barred with red-purple beneath and ciliate at the margin; these are usually borne after flowering. The inflorescence is a stout, mottled scape topped by a dense umbel of small flowers tightly enclosed by several showy, fleshy, bright scarlet spathe bracts, giving the plant its common name of blood lily or paintbrush lily. Numerous coral-red stamens with prominent yellow anthers project beyond the perianth, and the fruit is a fleshy, brightly coloured berry containing few large seeds.

Haemanthus is a southern African genus of the Amaryllidaceae characterised by the brush-like umbel framed by coloured bracts, and H. coccineus is its most widespread and variable species. The bright bracts and exserted stamens attract bird and insect pollinators, while the fleshy berries are dispersed by animals. Long cultivated as an ornamental, it is secure in the wild; its appearance in Himalayan gardens underscores its horticultural popularity rather than any natural Asian distribution.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Southern Africa, The Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs, Snijman's revision of Haemanthus (Amaryllidaceae)

Gentianaceae

Halenia elliptica

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

Bhutan2012 18
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September
Bhutan2012 52
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September

Description

Halenia elliptica is a widespread Asian gentian-relative ranging across the Himalaya and the mountains of central and eastern Asia, recorded from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia and Taiwan (CN, IN, NP, BT, MM, KZ, MN, RU, TW, with further records), and one of the most abundantly collected species treated here, with about 4437 occurrences. It grows in moist alpine and subalpine meadows, on grassy slopes, forest clearings, streamsides and open disturbed ground over a wide altitudinal span. The plant illustrated was found at Shele-La in Bhutan at 3600 m in September, an elevation and late-season flowering typical of its appearance in the autumn alpine turf and roadside banks of the high passes.

It is an erect, glabrous annual or biennial with a four-angled, often branched stem. The leaves are opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate with three to five prominent longitudinal veins. The flowers are borne in terminal and axillary cymes; the most distinctive feature is the corolla, which is four-lobed and blue to purplish, each lobe bearing at its base a slender, backward-projecting nectar spur, so that the open flower carries four divergent spurs, the character that defines the genus. The four stamens alternate with the lobes, and the superior, bicarpellate ovary ripens into a many-seeded capsule.

Halenia (subfamily Gentianoideae, tribe Gentianeae of the Gentianaceae) is unusual within its family for the conspicuously spurred corolla, an adaptation offering nectar to long-tongued pollinating insects and a notable instance of nectar-spur evolution within the otherwise spurless gentians. The species is highly variable across its enormous range. As a common, weedy, broadly distributed colonist of disturbed montane habitats, H. elliptica is of no conservation concern, and it is also gathered for use in Tibetan and Chinese traditional medicine.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Gentianaceae monograph (Halenia revision)

Ranunculaceae

Halerpestes sarmentosa

by GP Jürgens

(Adams) Komarov

Sikkim2004 68 P119
Sikkim West-Bengal, Bersay 2800m April

Description

Halerpestes sarmentosa is a widely distributed stoloniferous perennial of saline and moist open ground across temperate Eurasia, documented from Russia, China, India, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Uzbekistan, with disjunct and partly introduced records in the Americas (the more than 2170 GBIF occurrences include adventive populations). It favours damp meadows, lake and stream margins, marshy depressions and alkaline flats, typically from the lowlands to around 4500 m. The plant photographed at Bersay (Sikkim, West Bengal) at about 2800 m in April reflects its occurrence in moist montane grassland during early flowering.

The species is a low, mat-forming herb spreading by slender rooting stolons (sarmentose runners), from which arise long-petiolate basal leaves. The leaf blades are simple, ovate to reniform or somewhat three-lobed, with crenate margins and a cordate to truncate base, rather thick and slightly fleshy. The leafless scapes bear one to a few small flowers; the five spreading sepals subtend five narrow, yellow, nectariferous petals each with a basal scale. Stamens and carpels are numerous, the latter densely aggregated on an elongating receptacle and maturing into a globose to ovoid head of small, flattened, faintly ribbed achenes with a short straight beak.

Halerpestes was segregated from Ranunculus on the basis of its stoloniferous halophytic habit, leathery entire leaves and distinctive achene structure, the genus being centred on the steppe and saline wetlands of Central Asia. The taxon is also catalogued under the orthographic variant Halerpestes sarmentosus. Ecologically it is a salt-tolerant wetland colonist of grazed and disturbed shores; its broad range and tolerance of human-modified habitats render it of least concern, and its near-cosmopolitan spread illustrates the biogeographic links between Eurasian and American cold-temperate floras.

Author: (Adams) Komarov · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Tamura's monograph of Ranunculaceae

Zingiberacaea

Hedychium densiflorum

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Sikkim2003 54 P73
Sikkim avove Yoksam 2600m 08.2003

Description

Hedychium densiflorum Wall. is a robust rhizomatous ginger native to the eastern Himalaya, ranging through China (CN), India (IN), Nepal (NP), Bhutan (BT) and Myanmar (MM); GBIF records 255 occurrences, with additional points from cultivation in Britain, North America and elsewhere reflecting its popularity as a hardy ornamental. In the wild it grows in moist temperate forest, shaded banks and clearings, frequently as an epilithic or terrestrial herb among rocks. It was photographed in Sikkim above Yoksam at 2600 m in August, in the cool, monsoon-drenched broadleaf forest belt that typifies its habitat.

The plant grows from a stout, aromatic, creeping rhizome, producing tall leafy pseudostems formed by overlapping leaf-sheaths. The leaves are distichous, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate and shortly petiolate, with a conspicuous membranous ligule. The inflorescence is a dense, narrowly cylindrical terminal spike, much denser than in most congeners, from which the epithet derives; the bracts are imbricate and each subtends one or more flowers. The flowers are slender and orange to soft yellow, with a long corolla tube, narrow petals, a prominent exserted filament bearing the anther, and a bilobed or entire labellum. The fruit is a globose capsule splitting to reveal seeds enclosed in a bright arillus.

Hedychium belongs to tribe Zingibereae and is centred on the Indo-Malayan and Himalayan region, where many species are pollinated by moths and butterflies attracted to the long-tubed, often fragrant flowers. H. densiflorum and its selections such as 'Assam Orange' and 'Stephen' are widely grown for their hardiness. The original family field, spelled "Zingiberacaea", is retained verbatim though the correct orthography is Zingiberaceae. The species faces localised pressure from forest disturbance but remains common across its range.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Zingiberaceae monograph (Schumann; T. L. Wu & K. Larsen)

Zingiberacaea

Hedychium thyrsiforme

by GP Jürgens

Sm.

Bhutan2012 706
Bhutan Galephu 850m, September
Nepal 95 11 P18 ergebnis
Nepal Gorkha 1200m, Octobre

Description

Hedychium thyrsiforme is a ginger lily native to the Himalayan foothills and northeastern India, ranging through Nepal, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, with cultivated and naturalised records elsewhere (including Mauritius, Vanuatu, Brazil, the USA and Britain) reflected in its roughly 127 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of warm, humid subtropical forest, favouring shaded banks, ravines and the margins of broadleaved woodland, and is frequently epiphytic or lithophytic on mossy trunks and rocks. The localities photographed, at Galephu in Bhutan at 850 m in September and at Gorkha in Nepal at 1200 m in October, lie within its typical low to mid-elevation belt where late-monsoon humidity sustains flowering.

It is a robust perennial herb growing from a fleshy, aromatic, creeping rhizome and producing leafy pseudostems formed by sheathing leaf bases. The leaves are distichous, oblong-lanceolate, glabrous above and shortly hairy beneath, with a conspicuous ligule. The inflorescence is a dense, cylindrical terminal thyrse from which the epithet derives, crowded with white flowers; each has a slender corolla tube, narrow reflexed segments, and the showy whitish labellum and greatly exserted long-filamented stamen that give the genus its butterfly-lily aspect. The fruit is a capsule splitting to reveal seeds with an orange-red aril.

Hedychium belongs to tribe Zingibereae of the Zingiberaceae and is centred on the Indo-Malayan region, where its long-tubed, fragrant flowers are adapted to hawkmoth pollination. Several species, this among them, are grown ornamentally and can naturalise in the tropics. The input family spelling "Zingiberacaea" is retained as given, though the accepted family is Zingiberaceae. The species is not regarded as threatened across its wide native range.

Author: Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Hedychium revision (Wood / Sanoj & Sabu)