Author

G & P Jürgens

Zingiberacaea

Hedychium gardnerianum

by G & P Jürgens

Sheph. ex Ker Gawl.

Bhutan2012 668
Bhutan Tserang 1100m, September
Sikkim2003 45 P60
Sikkim above Yoksam 200m 08.2003

Description

Hedychium gardnerianum, the Kahili ginger, is native to the eastern Himalaya of India, Nepal and Bhutan but has been very widely introduced and naturalised worldwide; GBIF records over 20,000 occurrences, the great majority from naturalised populations in Hawaii, New Zealand, the Azores, South Africa and Australia far outside its native range. In its homeland it grows in moist subtropical and lower temperate forest, on shaded banks, ravines and clearings. The images from Tserang in Bhutan at about 1100 m in September and above Yoksam in Sikkim show it flowering in late summer in its native warm, humid foothill forest belt.

It is a robust, clump-forming perennial herb arising from a stout, fleshy, branching rhizome and reaching two metres or more, with erect, leafy pseudostems formed by overlapping leaf sheaths. The leaves are large, oblong-lanceolate, glabrous above and shortly pubescent beneath, with a sheathing base and prominent midrib. The inflorescence is a dense, showy terminal cylindrical spike of many bracteate flowers; each is fragrant and lemon-yellow with a long-exserted bright red filament bearing the anther, the floral tube slender and the lip and lateral staminodes petaloid. The fruit is a fleshy capsule splitting to reveal numerous seeds enclosed in a bright orange-red aril.

Within Hedychium this species is notable for its conspicuous red stamens and is among the most ornamental gingers. The same vigour, rhizomatous spread and bird-dispersed arillate seeds make it a serious invasive in island and oceanic-climate floras, where it forms dense monocultures that suppress native regeneration, and it is listed among the world's worst invasive plants. Conservation concern thus relates not to its survival but to its impact where introduced.

Author: Sheph. ex Ker Gawl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Zingiberaceae), Branney Hardy Gingers including Hedychium, Roscoea and Zingiber

Fabaceae

Hedysarum kumaonense

by G & P Jürgens

Benth. ex Baker

Nepal 99 720 ergebnis ergebnis
West-Nepal Bauli-Khola 3550m, July

Description

Hedysarum kumaonense is an alpine legume of the western and central Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, China and India across some 63 GBIF occurrences. The photographed plant was found at Bauli-Khola in West Nepal at about 3550 m in July. It inhabits open alpine and subalpine slopes, stony meadows, gravelly riverbanks and grazed turf, typically between 3000 and 4500 m, growing on well-drained, often calcareous substrates in the high-elevation grasslands that flower briefly during the short summer.

The plant is a perennial herb with a stout woody rootstock and ascending to erect stems. The leaves are imparipinnate, bearing several pairs of elliptic to oblong leaflets, with membranous stipules at the base of the petiole. The flowers are papilionaceous, pink to purple or reddish, arranged in dense axillary racemes; each has the standard, wing and keel petals characteristic of the Fabaceae. The diagnostic fruit is a flattened, transversely jointed loment that breaks at maturity into one-seeded, reticulate articles, a feature that distinguishes Hedysarum (sweetvetches) from related genera.

Like most legumes the species fixes atmospheric nitrogen through root nodules in symbiosis with rhizobia, enriching the impoverished alpine soils it colonises. The lomentaceous fruit segments are dispersed individually, aided by their textured surface. As a member of the Himalayan alpine flora with a regionally restricted range, H. kumaonense is not formally assessed as threatened but is subject to heavy summer grazing across its montane pastures.

Author: Benth. ex Baker · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Fedtschenko – Monograph of the Genus Hedysarum

Proteaceae

Helicia nilagirica

by G & P Jürgens

Bedd.

Bhutan2012 667
Bhutan Tserang 1100m, September

Description

Helicia nilagirica is an evergreen tree or large shrub of subtropical and tropical montane Asia, distributed from southern and northeastern India and the Nilgiri hills (whence the epithet) through Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, southern China, Vietnam and Cambodia; GBIF lists some 944 occurrences, the species being relatively well collected. It grows in evergreen and semi-evergreen broadleaved forest, on hill slopes, ridges and along forest streams, chiefly between about 800 and 2000 m. The photographed individual was recorded in eastern Bhutan at Tserang around 1100 m in September, a humid forest setting typical of this warm-temperate to subtropical Proteaceae.

It is a tree with smooth to finely fissured bark and coriaceous foliage. The leaves are alternate, often clustered toward the branch tips, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, leathery, entire or with a few coarse teeth toward the apex, glabrous and glossy above. The flowers are small and borne in slender, elongate, axillary racemes; as in the genus they are bisexual with four tepals that recurve at anthesis, the four stamens inserted on the tepals, and a hypogynous disk. The fruit is a hard, globose to ellipsoid, indehiscent drupe-like nut with a single large seed.

Helicia (Proteaceae) is the largest Old World genus of the family, centred on tropical Asia and reaching its northern limit in the eastern Himalaya. H. nilagirica is among the more widespread Asian species, and its racemose inflorescences and one-seeded indehiscent fruits typify the genus. Broadly distributed and locally common, it is not considered globally threatened, though populations depend on subtropical broadleaved forest affected by clearance.

Author: Bedd. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Sleumer revision of Asian Proteaceae

Helwingiaceae

Helwingia himalaica

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson ex C.B.Clarke

Sikkim 2006 40 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chainribas 1660m, May

Description

Helwingia himalaica is a Sino-Himalayan shrub distributed from China through Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar to Vietnam, with over 1300 documented occurrences spanning the eastern Himalaya and southwest China. It grows in the understorey of evergreen and mixed broad-leaved forest, along shaded ravines and moist montane slopes, typically between roughly 1300 and 2700 m. The photographed plant from Chainribas in West Bengal, India at 1660 m, flowering in May, is characteristic of its occurrence in humid, shaded subtropical to lower temperate forest in the eastern Himalaya, where it forms part of the shrub layer.

It is a dioecious, evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub with slender, glabrous branches. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic or oblong, with a setulose-serrulate margin, an acuminate apex and a cuneate base, and small filiform stipule-like appendages at the petiole base. The most remarkable feature is the epiphyllous inflorescence: the small, greenish, four- to five-merous unisexual flowers are borne in clusters on the upper surface (adaxial midrib) of the leaf, a phenomenon resulting from the adnation of the floral axis to the petiole and midrib. Staminate flowers occur in small umbels and pistillate flowers singly or few together, the latter with an inferior ovary that ripens into a small, fleshy, black or red drupe.

Helwingia is the sole genus of the small family Helwingiaceae in the order Aquifoliales, distinguished from related families chiefly by its unique epiphyllous flowering. The greenish flowers are insect-pollinated, and the berry-like drupes are dispersed by birds. As a widespread and locally common forest understorey shrub across the Sino-Himalayan region, H. himalaica (the accepted name) is not considered threatened.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Soltis et al. Aquifoliales phylogenetic studies (monograph)

Plantaginaceae

Hemiphragma heterophyllum

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2015 39
Bhutan Dochu-La 2700m, October
Sikkim2004 301 G524
Sikkim/India Choka 3800m May
Nepal 1994 90 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Jaljale Himal
3100m April

Description

Hemiphragma heterophyllum is a widespread Asian creeping herb extending along the Himalaya from Pakistan through Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and northeast India to China and Taiwan, and southward into the mountains of Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, with naturalised records elsewhere; GBIF logs 2751 occurrences across this broad range. It grows on open banks, grassy slopes, mossy rocks, forest paths and disturbed ground in the temperate to alpine zone, roughly 2500 to 4000 m. The cited records from Dochu-La in Bhutan (2700 m, October), Choka in Sikkim (3800 m, May) and the Jaljale Himal in eastern Nepal (3100 m, April) demonstrate its wide elevational and seasonal amplitude.

It is a small, mat-forming perennial herb with slender, much-branched, prostrate and rooting stems. The leaves are conspicuously dimorphic, as the epithet heterophyllum indicates: those on the main stems are broad, orbicular to reniform and crenate, while the clustered axillary fascicles bear numerous narrow, needle-like (acicular) leaves. The flowers are small, solitary and nearly sessile in the leaf axils, with a campanulate calyx and a pink to white rotate-campanulate corolla. The fruit is the most striking feature: a fleshy, berry-like, bright scarlet to orange globose capsule that is exserted among the foliage and conspicuous in fruit.

The sole species of the genus Hemiphragma, it is now placed in Plantaginaceae following the dismemberment of the traditional Scrophulariaceae, having formerly been assigned to that family. Its brightly coloured fleshy fruits suggest endozoochorous dispersal by birds, unusual within its largely dry-fruited relatives. The species is abundant, ecologically versatile and frequently colonises trodden or disturbed habitats, so it is of least conservation concern; its capacity to establish outside its native range is reflected in scattered exotic records.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Genera Plantarum and Hooker's Flora of British India

Orchideaceae

Hemipilia puberula

by G & P Jürgens

(King & Pantl.) Y.Tang & H.Peng

BhutanPG2011 66 ergebnis
Bhutan Menchuang, 2650m June

Description

Hemipilia puberula is a terrestrial orchid of the temperate Sino-Himalayan mountains, recorded from China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar, with 41 GBIF occurrences indicating a relatively restricted eastern Himalayan and southwest Chinese distribution. It grows on grassy and rocky slopes, in open forest margins and among scrub in the cool montane to subalpine zone, generally between about 2400 and 3500 m. The illustrated plant was found at Menchuang in Bhutan at around 2650 m in June, in the upper temperate belt where flushed slopes and forest edges support a scattered terrestrial orchid flora.

The plant develops from a small ovoid or ellipsoid tuber and typically bears one (sometimes two) basal leaf that is ovate to elliptic and frequently spotted or mottled with purplish blotches above. The slender erect stem carries a lax raceme of a few showy flowers. These are rosy-purple to pinkish-lilac, with spreading sepals and petals and a prominent, broad, flabellate lip that is often notched or lobed at the apex and bears a slender backward-pointing spur; the epithet puberula refers to the fine minute pubescence on the plant. The fruit is an erect ribbed capsule.

The basionym authority (King & Pantl.) Y.Tang & H.Peng reflects the modern recircumscription of Hemipilia to include species formerly placed in Chusua and segregated from Ponerorchis, supported by molecular phylogenetic study. The genus belongs to tribe Orchideae and is a Sino-Himalayan group of tuberous terrestrial orchids. With its limited range and showy flowers, H. puberula is locally uncommon and potentially vulnerable to grazing and collection, and is regulated under CITES Appendix II.

Author: (King & Pantl.) Y.Tang & H.Peng · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, The Orchids of Bhutan (Pearce & Cribb), Tang, Xiang & Peng (Hemipilia phylogeny)

Araliaceae

Heptapleurum griffithii

by G & P Jürgens

(Seem.) ined.

Sikkim 2006 482 ergebnis
Sikkim 2006 481 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1750m, May
Sikkim 2006 310 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1750m, May

Description

Heptapleurum griffithii is an eastern Himalayan araliad documented from Bhutan and adjacent south-western China, the GBIF record being sparse with only about three georeferenced occurrences, reflecting both its restricted range and limited collection. It grows in moist, broad-leaved evergreen and mixed montane forest, often as an epiphyte or hemiepiphyte on tree trunks and mossy rocks, or as a free-standing shrub, in the warm-temperate zone. The plant photographed at Chaana in West Bengal at 1750 m in May occupied this humid mid-elevation forest belt, where high atmospheric moisture and shade favour its establishment.

It is a glabrous shrub or small tree, sometimes epiphytic, with stout greyish branchlets. The leaves are alternate and palmately compound, the long petiole bearing a whorl of several leaflets; the leaflets are elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, leathery, entire, acuminate at the apex and cuneate at the base, with prominent lateral venation and a sheathing petiole base. The inflorescence is a large terminal panicle of umbels; the small flowers are greenish to creamy, with five petals, five stamens and an inferior ovary crowned by a low stylar disc. The fruit is a small subglobose drupe, ribbed when dry and containing several pyrenes.

GBIF lists the name as a synonym while retaining Heptapleurum griffithii as accepted; the species was long placed in Schefflera, and the recircumscription of that polyphyletic genus has returned many Asian species to Heptapleurum. As a forest-canopy and epiphytic component it contributes to structural diversity, its fleshy drupes dispersed by birds. Given its narrow documented range, intact mid-montane forest is important to its persistence.

Author: (Seem.) ined. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, A Generic Revision of Araliaceae (Schefflera and allies)

Araliaceae

Heptapleurum rhododendrifolium 

by G & P Jürgens

(Griff.) G.M.Plunkett & Lowry

Sikkim 2006 482 ergebnis
India Sikkim, Ringi Chu 1900m, May
Sikkim 2006 310 ergebnis
India Sikkim, Ringi Chu 1900m, May

Description

Heptapleurum rhododendrifolium is an epiphytic to semi-epiphytic shrub distributed across the eastern Himalayas and into Southeast Asia, with records from Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, northeast India, Myanmar, southern China, and extending to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. GBIF documents 136 occurrences across this broad range. The species inhabits subtropical and warm-temperate evergreen forests at elevations of 1,200–2,500 m, where it typically grows as an epiphyte on mossy tree trunks and branches, or occasionally as a terrestrial shrub on steep, humus-rich banks in areas of persistent cloud immersion and high rainfall.
Heptapleurum rhododendrifolium is an evergreen shrub, 1–4 m tall, with stout, sparsely branched stems. The leaves are digitately compound, clustered near the branch tips, with 5–9 coriaceous leaflets. Leaflets are oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 8–20 cm long, glossy dark green above and often pale or ferruginous-tomentose beneath, with entire margins and a prominent midrib — the overall appearance recalling Rhododendron foliage, hence the epithet. Petioles are stout, 10–20 cm long. The inflorescence is a terminal, compound umbel of numerous small, greenish-white flowers, each 3–4 mm across, with 5–7 petals and an equal number of stamens. The ovary is inferior, 5–7-locular. The fruit is a subglobose drupe, 4–6 mm in diameter, ripening to dark purple or black, with persistent style remnants.
This species was long placed in Schefflera sensu lato, but recent molecular phylogenetic studies by Plunkett and Lowry have led to its transfer to the reinstated genus Heptapleurum, which accommodates the Asian and Pacific clade formerly within Schefflera. The photographed specimen from Ringi Chu in Sikkim at 1,900 m represents a typical mid-elevation epiphytic occurrence in one of the wettest valleys of the eastern Himalayas. The species plays an ecological role as a provider of fruit resources for montane bird communities. Its broad distribution from the Himalayas to the Pacific islands reflects an ancient tropical Asian lineage with considerable dispersal capacity.

Author: (Griff.) G.M.Plunkett & Lowry · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Plunkett & Lowry (2018) — Phylogenetics of Araliaceae

Apiaceae

Heracleum pinnatum

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Nepal 99 285 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 4000m, June

Description

Heracleum pinnatum, here treated under its accepted name in current databases (it is variously circumscribed and has at times been placed in the segregate genus Tetrataenium, as reflected in the source page), is a robust umbellifer of the western and central Himalaya. GBIF holds about 193 occurrences from India, Pakistan, China and Nepal, indicating a montane-to-alpine distribution along the northwestern arc of the range. It favours open grassy slopes, herb-rich alpine meadows, forest clearings and moist hollows, generally between 3000 and 4300 m. The plant figured from Kalmura in West Nepal at roughly 4000 m in June occupies the upper part of this band, flowering in early summer amid the lush tall-herb communities that develop on deep, moisture-retentive alpine soils.

It is a stout, erect perennial herb arising from a thick taproot, the hollow furrowed stem reaching one to two metres and clothed, as is typical of the genus, in rough or hispid hairs. The leaves are large and pinnately compound with broad, coarsely toothed and often deeply lobed segments. The inflorescence is a large flat-topped compound umbel with numerous rays; the outer flowers frequently have enlarged, radiating, deeply notched petals that give the umbel a showy margin, a trait promoting insect attraction. Flowers are white. The fruit is a dorsally compressed schizocarp (a mericarp pair) with broad lateral wings and conspicuous dark longitudinal oil canals (vittae) on the commissural and dorsal faces, the diagnostic feature underpinning the Tetrataenium concept.

The taxonomy of Himalayan Heracleum is notoriously complex, with the broad-fruited, club-shaped-vitta species often segregated as Tetrataenium by some authors while others retain them within an enlarged Heracleum; molecular work has tended to support a reintegration, hence the accepted placement adopted here. Like its congeners the plant contains furanocoumarins that can cause phytophotodermatitis, and it offers abundant nectar to a wide guild of generalist pollinators. As a wide-ranging montane herb of accessible meadow habitat it is not regarded as threatened.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, Mukherjee & Constance Umbelliferae of India

Orchideaceae

Herminium edgeworthii

by G & P Jürgens

(Hook.f. ex Collett) X.H. Jin. Schuit., Raskoti & Lu Q.Huang

Bhutan2012 195
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3300m September

Description

Herminium edgeworthii is a terrestrial Himalayan orchid distributed across Pakistan, Nepal, northern India, Bhutan and the wider western to eastern Himalayan arc, documented by around 161 GBIF records. It inhabits open alpine and subalpine meadows, grassy slopes and forest clearings in the temperate to lower alpine zone. The plant imaged in the Haa (Haar) Valley of Bhutan at 3300 m in September shows the species in characteristic high-meadow habitat, flowering toward the end of the monsoon growing season when many terrestrial Himalayan orchids reach anthesis.

It is a slender, glabrous terrestrial herb arising from one or two small subterranean tubers. The stem bears a few basal to lower-cauline leaves that are linear to narrowly oblong-lanceolate, sheathing at the base. The inflorescence is a slender, many-flowered terminal raceme of small, greenish to yellowish-green flowers. Each flower is non-resupinate or subresupinate, with a hooded arrangement of sepals and petals and a characteristically lobed, often forward-projecting lip; the column is short and the pollinia are attached to small viscidia, as is typical of the genus. The fruit is a small, erect, dehiscent capsule releasing abundant dust-like seeds.

This taxon, originally described under Herminium and long treated in segregate genera (its full citation reflecting a transfer by Jin, Schuit., Raskoti and Huang), illustrates the considerable nomenclatural revision the Herminium-Platanthera complex has undergone in light of molecular phylogenetics; the himalayaflora link to platanthera-edgeworthii records its earlier placement. Ecologically the species depends on intact montane grassland and, like all orchids, on mycorrhizal associations for establishment. It is widely distributed and locally frequent, not assessed as threatened, but is sensitive to meadow degradation and grazing pressure.

Author: (Hook.f. ex Collett) X.H. Jin. Schuit., Raskoti & Lu Q.Huang · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, An Annotated Checklist of the Orchids of Nepal, Pridgeon et al. Genera Orchidacearum (monograph)