Author

G & P Jürgens

Malvaceae

Gossypium hirsutum

by G & P Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 1230
Bhutan Trashigang 1150m, October
Bhutan2012 1231
Bhutan Trashigang 1150m, October

Description

Gossypium hirsutum, Upland cotton, is native to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean but is now pantropical and warm-temperate in cultivation, accounting for the great majority of the world's cotton crop. Its 25,000-plus georeferenced records reflect this near-cosmopolitan distribution, with concentrations in the United States (US) and Mexico (MX) and naturalised or cultivated occurrences across Brazil, Uzbekistan, Australia, India, China and many other countries. In the Himalayan region it is a lowland cultigen and escape rather than a wild element; the plant photographed at Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at about 1150 m in October represents such warm subtropical valley cultivation, well below the montane flora. It thrives in hot, sunny, frost-free lowlands on deep, well-drained loams.

It is an erect, somewhat woody annual or short-lived perennial herb to shrub, with branching stems bearing scattered hairs and dark glandular dots. The leaves are alternate, broadly cordate and palmately three- to five-lobed, the lobes ovate-triangular and acuminate, with a basal nectary on the midrib beneath. The showy flowers are solitary and axillary, subtended by an epicalyx of three large, deeply incised, cordate bracts; the corolla is creamy white to pale yellow, often turning pink with age. The fruit is a three- to five-locular ovoid capsule (boll) that dehisces to reveal seeds embedded in copious white lint of elongated epidermal seed-hairs, the cotton fibre of commerce.

Gossypium (Malvaceae) is an economically pre-eminent genus whose allotetraploid New World cottons, including G. hirsutum, arose from hybridisation between Old and New World diploid lineages. The species is the foundation of global textile agriculture and a model for polyploid genomics. As a fully domesticated crop it has no conservation concern, though its wild and feral relatives are of interest for germplasm conservation and breeding.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Fryxell monographic studies of Gossypium and the Malvaceae

Malvaceae

Grewia serrulata

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2014 718
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, May

Description

Grewia serrulata is a shrub or small tree of the Indomalayan tropics, distributed through India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Thailand, with around 382 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of warm subtropical to tropical hill forest, growing in open woodland, forest margins, scrub, ravine slopes and along roadsides and clearings, generally on well-drained ground in the foothill and lower montane belt. The record from Wangdi Phodrang in Bhutan at about 2000 m in May illustrates its occurrence in the warm temperate to subtropical zone of the eastern Himalayan foothills, flowering in the pre-monsoon season.

The plant is a much-branched shrub or small tree with young branchlets bearing stellate pubescence. The alternate, simple leaves are ovate to oblong-lanceolate with an asymmetric, rounded to subcordate base, an acuminate apex, a finely serrulate margin (as the epithet denotes) and prominent palmate basal venation, the lower surface often paler and stellate-hairy. The flowers are borne in small axillary or leaf-opposed cymes; each has five sepals, five spreading yellow to whitish petals each with a basal nectariferous gland, and a prominent central androgynophore bearing numerous stamens around a superior ovary. The fruit is a small, lobed, fleshy drupe, becoming reddish to purplish-black at maturity and bearing few stones.

Described by de Candolle, Grewia serrulata belongs to a large genus formerly placed in Tiliaceae but now subsumed, following molecular phylogenetics, within the broadly circumscribed Malvaceae (subfamily Grewioideae); the input family is retained accordingly. The genus is well known for its tough bast fibres and edible drupes, and several species are gathered for fruit, fodder and fibre. As a widespread, adaptable component of secondary and disturbed forest, G. serrulata is not regarded as threatened, though locally valued for its useful products.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of British India, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Bayer & Kubitzki treatment of Malvaceae

Asteraceae

Gynura bicolor

by G & P Jürgens

(Roxb. ex Willd.) DC.

Bhutan2012 1313
Bhutan Pemagatse 1800m, October

Description

Gynura bicolor is a soft-stemmed composite of warm-temperate to subtropical Asia, native through China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar and Bhutan, and very widely cultivated and naturalised across the Pacific, Americas and elsewhere; GBIF lists over 600 occurrences reflecting both wild and grown plants. It occupies forest margins, moist shaded slopes, streamsides and disturbed ground, generally below about 2000 m. The photographed plant is from Pemagatse in Bhutan at 1800 m in October, growing in humid subtropical hill forest at the lower edge of the survey area.

The species is an erect to ascending perennial herb with fleshy, somewhat succulent, often purplish stems. The leaves are alternate, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, irregularly toothed to lyrately lobed, and strikingly bicolorous, green above and deep purple beneath, the source of the epithet. The capitula are discoid, lacking ray florets, and gathered in lax terminal corymbs; each head holds numerous orange to reddish tubular florets within a cylindrical involucre of narrow phyllaries, the long styles exserted with hairy, recurved branches. The fruit is a ribbed cypsela bearing a copious white pappus of fine bristles.

Gynura belongs to the tribe Senecioneae, and G. bicolor is well known as the edible "Okinawan spinach" or hong feng cai, grown as a leaf vegetable and used in traditional medicine, which accounts for its extensive cultivated distribution. It is of no conservation concern, being a vigorous, easily propagated plant tolerant of disturbance.

Author: (Roxb. ex Willd.) DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Revision of the Genus Gynura (Senecioneae)

Orchideaceae

Habenaria dentata

by G & P Jürgens

Schltr.

Bhutan2012 624
Bhutan Dochu-La 2800m, September
Bhutan2012 957
Bhutan Dochu-La 2800m, September

Description

Habenaria dentata is a wide-ranging terrestrial orchid of tropical and subtropical Asia, documented in GBIF across 933 occurrences from China, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and beyond. It grows in grassy slopes, open forest, scrub and forest-margin clearings from the lowlands to about 2800 m. The photographed plant was found at Dochu-La in Bhutan at about 2800 m in September, at the upper edge of its range, flowering at the close of the monsoon when soil moisture remains high in the cool mid-montane zone.

It is a tuberous terrestrial herb arising from underground ellipsoid tubers, with an erect leafy stem 30-60 cm tall bearing several oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, clasping cauline leaves. The inflorescence is a dense terminal raceme of showy white flowers; the dorsal sepal and petals converge to form a hood, while the conspicuous three-lobed labellum has the lateral lobes broadly dilated and fringed-dentate along the margins, giving the epithet dentata, and bears a long, slender, downcurved spur. The column is short with the rostellum and pollinaria typical of Habenaria, and pollination is effected by long-tongued, often nocturnal moths attracted to the white, spurred flowers.

Habenaria (Orchidaceae, subtribe Orchidinae) is a large, cosmopolitan genus of terrestrial orchids best diversified in the tropics, and like all orchids it is listed on CITES Appendix II. Seed germination depends on symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. Despite its broad distribution and relative frequency, populations are reduced locally by grassland conversion and collection, but the species is not globally threatened.

Author: Schltr. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, The Orchids of Bhutan, CITES Appendix II listing

Orchideaceae

Habenaria pectinata 

by G & P Jürgens

D.Don

Nepal 99 902 ergebnis
West-Nepal Sepka 2680m, July
Nepal 99 903 ergebnis
West-Nepal Sepka 2680m, July

Description

Habenaria pectinata is a terrestrial orchid of the Himalaya and adjacent China, distributed from India and Nepal through Bhutan into south-western China, with records also from Japan. GBIF holds around 222 occurrences, concentrated in the central and eastern Himalaya and the Sino-Himalayan borderlands. It is a plant of temperate forest and forest margins, grassy slopes, clearings and humus-rich banks, typically between about 1500 and 3000 m, flowering during the summer monsoon. The population photographed in West-Nepal at Sepka (2680 m, July) is characteristic of its occurrence in cool, moist mid-elevation woodland and adjoining meadows, flowering as the rains advance.

The plant is a tuberous terrestrial herb arising from ovoid to oblong root-tubers, producing a single erect, leafy stem. The leaves are several, cauline, ovate-lanceolate to oblong, sheathing at the base and grading into bracts above. The inflorescence is a lax to fairly dense terminal raceme of green to greenish-white flowers. Each flower shows the characteristic Habenaria structure: a galeate dorsal sepal with spreading lateral sepals, narrow petals, and a deeply tripartite lip whose lateral lobes are conspicuously divided into slender comb-like (pectinate) segments, giving the epithet, with a long slender spur behind. The column bears widely separated viscidia and elongate caudicles adapted to moth pollination; the fruit is a ribbed dehiscent capsule releasing dust-like seeds.

The family name as supplied (Orchideaceae) is an orthographic variant of the correct Orchidaceae. Habenaria is a large pantropical genus, and H. pectinata, described by David Don, belongs to a Himalayan group with fringed or pectinate lip lobes whose delimitation from allied species requires care. As a fairly widespread terrestrial orchid it is not globally assessed as threatened, but like many ground orchids it is sensitive to forest disturbance, habitat loss and collection.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Orchids of Nepal, monograph of the genus Habenaria (Kraenzlin)

Boraginaceae

Hackelia bhutanica

by G & P Jürgens

R.R.Mill

Bhutan2014 1055
Bhutan Takthsang 2900m, May
BhutanPG2011 766
Bhutan Chele-La, 3800m July

Description

Hackelia bhutanica is a forget-me-not relative of the eastern Himalaya, described from Bhutan and also recorded from India and Nepal, with a comparatively small number of occurrences (31 georeferenced records) consistent with a localised eastern Himalayan range. It grows on shaded banks, forest margins, open slopes and among rocks in the temperate to subalpine zones. The illustrated plants from Bhutan — at Takthsang around 2900 m in May and at Chele-La near 3800 m in July — span a broad altitudinal range and show the species flowering from late spring at lower elevations into mid-summer at higher ones, tracking the seasonal advance of conditions up the mountain.

The plant is an erect biennial or perennial herb, more or less roughly hairy throughout, with a leafy stem arising from a basal cluster of leaves. The leaves are alternate, narrowly lanceolate to oblong, entire and hispid. The flowers are borne in elongating, scorpioid (coiled) cymes typical of the Boraginaceae; each has a five-lobed calyx and a small, salver-shaped, blue corolla with a short tube and five spreading lobes closed at the throat by raised scales (fornices). The fruit characteristic of Hackelia consists of four nutlets whose margins bear glochidiate (barbed, hooked) prickles, an adaptation for dispersal by attachment to passing animals.

Hackelia is segregated from the closely allied Lappula and the broader stickseed group within Boraginaceae, distinguished largely by nutlet ornamentation; the species was described by R. R. Mill, a specialist in the Bhutanese and Himalayan flora. As a restricted eastern Himalayan endemic known from relatively few localities, H. bhutanica warrants attention from a conservation standpoint, its persistence depending on the maintenance of the temperate forest and open subalpine habitats it occupies.

Author: R.R.Mill · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Boraginaceae), Mill: revisionary studies of Himalayan Boraginaceae

Boraginaceae

Hackelia uncinata

by G & P Jürgens

(Royle ex Benth.) C.E.C.Fisch.

Nepal 99 112 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3600m, June
Garh 07 336 ergebnis
India Garhwal Mahji 2650m, June

Description

Hackelia uncinata (Royle ex Benth.) C.E.C.Fisch. is a perennial herb of the Himalaya and Central Asian mountains, with GBIF recording some 417 occurrences across China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, Mongolia and Russia. It grows in forest clearings, on shaded banks, among subalpine scrub and in moist meadow on the cooler slopes of the temperate to subalpine zone, flowering in early summer. The cited collections, from south of Rara Lake in west Nepal at 3600 m in June and from Mahji in Garhwal (Indian Himalaya) at 2650 m in June, illustrate its preference for partly shaded, humus-rich montane sites where it forms loose stands.

The plant produces erect to ascending, pubescent stems from a perennial rootstock, bearing alternate, ovate-lanceolate to elliptic leaves that are softly hairy, the lower ones petiolate and the upper sessile. The small flowers are arranged in lax, branched, scorpioid cymes; the corolla is rotate to shortly funnelform, pale blue to violet, with five lobes and prominent throat appendages (fornices). The diagnostic feature, reflected in the epithet uncinata, lies in the four nutlets, whose margins bear a row of glochidiate (hooked, barbed) prickles that catch on fur and clothing, effecting epizoochorous dispersal.

Hackelia, segregated from Lappula and the broader stickseed assemblage, is distinguished by nutlet ornamentation and is centred on the temperate mountains of Asia and the Americas. The hooked nutlets are an effective adaptation for animal-mediated dispersal across open montane terrain. The species is widespread and not of conservation concern, occurring frequently in both natural and lightly disturbed habitats throughout its broad Himalayan and Central Asian range.

Author: (Royle ex Benth.) C.E.C.Fisch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Boraginaceae of the Western Himalaya, Brand monograph on Hackelia and Lappula

Ranunculaceae

Halerpestes tricuspis

by G & P Jürgens

(Maxim.) Hand.-Mazz.

Sikkim2004 282 P494 ergebnis
Sikkim Dzongri 4000m, May

Description

Halerpestes tricuspis is a small, stoloniferous perennial of the Ranunculaceae, distributed across the high mountains of Central Asia and the Himalaya. GBIF records (377 occurrences) document its presence in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Mongolia and Pakistan, where it occupies the alpine and subalpine zone. It is a characteristic plant of moist, often saline or marshy ground, the margins of glacial lakes, seepage flushes and streamsides, typically between 3,000 and 5,000 m. The photographed material from Dzongri in Sikkim at around 4,000 m in May exemplifies this preference for wet alpine meadows where snowmelt sustains permanently damp substrates.

The plant forms low mats by means of slender, rooting stolons. The leaves are basal, long-petiolate, with a small, fleshy, broadly cuneate to obovate blade that is characteristically three-toothed or shallowly three-lobed at the apex, the feature from which the epithet tricuspis derives. Flowering scapes are leafless and rise just above the foliage, each bearing one to few small, bright yellow flowers. The flowers have five sepals and five glossy petals each with a basal nectary scale; the numerous stamens surround a domed receptacle that develops into a globose to ovoid head of small, compressed, finely ridged achenes.

Formerly placed in Ranunculus, the genus Halerpestes is distinguished by its stoloniferous habit, the toothed leaf apices and the longitudinally ribbed achenes adapted to wetland dispersal. The species is an indicator of intact alpine wetland and flush communities, habitats sensitive to grazing pressure, trampling and hydrological change driven by glacial retreat. Though not currently of conservation concern owing to its wide range, its dependence on specialised wet microhabitats makes local populations vulnerable.

Author: (Maxim.) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Tamura: Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien – Ranunculaceae (1995)

Zingiberacaea

Hedychium coronarium

by G & P Jürgens

J.Koenig

Bhutan2012 677 ergebnis
Hedychium coronarium

Description

Hedychium coronarium is a robust ginger lily native to the eastern Himalaya and adjoining regions of South and Southeast Asia, including Nepal, Bhutan, northeastern India, and southern China. It has been widely introduced and naturalised throughout the tropics and subtropics, with GBIF recording over 12,600 occurrences from countries spanning South America, Central America, the Caribbean, East Asia, and Oceania. In its native Himalayan range, the species grows along stream margins, in moist ravines, on forest floors, and at the edges of subtropical and warm temperate forests, at elevations from 200 to 2,000 m. It thrives in humid, semi-shaded conditions with consistently moist soils.
The plant is a large, rhizomatous perennial herb, 1–2 m tall, with erect, cane-like pseudostems formed by tightly clasping leaf sheaths. Leaves are distichous, oblong-lanceolate, 30–60 cm long and 5–10 cm wide, acuminate, glabrous above, pubescent beneath, with a prominent midrib. The inflorescence is a dense, terminal, ellipsoid spike, 10–20 cm long, bearing numerous flowers subtended by large, green, imbricate bracts. Flowers are large and highly fragrant, with a white, deeply bilobed labellum 4–6 cm long forming the showy part of the flower. The lateral staminodes are petaloid, white, spatulate. The single fertile stamen bears a linear anther. The fruit is a trigonous capsule, orange when ripe, dehiscing to reveal numerous seeds enveloped in a red aril.
Hedychium coronarium is one of the most widely cultivated ornamental gingers in the world and is the national flower of Cuba, where it was introduced. In many tropical regions outside its native range, it has become invasive, forming dense monodominant stands along waterways that exclude native vegetation; it is listed as invasive in Hawaii, Brazil, and several Pacific islands. In its native Himalayan habitat, however, it is an ecologically integrated component of riparian and forest-edge communities. The genus Hedychium comprises approximately 80 species centred on the Sino-Himalayan region, and H. coronarium remains one of its most recognisable and taxonomically stable members.

Author: J.Koenig · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Wu & Larsen: Zingiberaceae in Flora of China Vol. 24, Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3

Zingiberacaea

Hedychium ellipticum

by G & P Jürgens

Buch.-Ham. ex Sm.

Bhutan2012 469
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September

Description

Hedychium ellipticum is a rhizomatous perennial of the family Zingiberaceae, one of the ornamental ginger lilies native to the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia. GBIF data document its occurrence across Bhutan, Nepal, northeast India, Myanmar, Thailand and southern China, with additional records reflecting cultivated material outside its native range. It grows in moist, shaded broad-leaved and evergreen forest, on humus-rich banks, ravine sides and rocky slopes, typically between about 1,000 and 2,400 m. The plant photographed near Wangdue Phodrang (Wangdi) in Bhutan at around 2,500 m in September represents the upper part of this altitudinal band, where flowering coincides with the late monsoon.

The species develops a stout, horizontally creeping rhizome from which arise erect, leafy pseudostems up to 1–1.5 m tall. The leaves are distichous, sessile or shortly petiolate, with elliptic to oblong-elliptic blades that are glabrous above and may be pubescent beneath, tapering to an acuminate apex, with a conspicuous ligule at the leaf sheath. The inflorescence is a dense terminal spike bearing imbricate green bracts, each subtending one or more flowers. The flowers are showy and fragrant, white with a long, slender corolla tube; the labellum is broad and bilobed and the filament conspicuously exserted, the whole flower built on the characteristic Hedychium plan with a single fertile stamen. The fruit is a globose capsule splitting to reveal seeds enveloped in a bright orange-red aril.

Hedychium is a horticulturally important genus, and several Himalayan species including H. ellipticum and the related H. spicatum are used in traditional medicine and as a source of aromatic rhizomes. The flowers are adapted to pollination by long-tongued insects and hawkmoths, attracted by scent and the slender nectar tube. Within the genus the elliptic leaf form and white, exserted-stamen flowers distinguish this species; care is needed in herbarium identification because it has frequently been confused with allied taxa of the H. spicatum complex.

Author: Buch.-Ham. ex Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Nepal, Wood: A Revision of Hedychium (Zingiberaceae)