Author

G & P Jürgens

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum reniforme

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Garw 2005 277 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2650m, October

Description

Thalictrum reniforme is a perennial herb distributed across the Himalayan arc from northern India through Nepal and Bhutan to southwestern China (Yunnan, Xizang, Sichuan). It occurs in moist, shaded habitats including forest margins, thickets, stream banks, and damp meadows at elevations of 1,800–3,500 m. The species is well represented in the western Himalayan foothills, as demonstrated by collections from Kunol in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India, at 2,650 m, where plants have been observed in fruit as late as October.
The plant produces erect to ascending stems 30–80 cm tall from a short, fibrous-rooted rhizome. The leaves are bi- to triternately compound; the leaflets are distinctive for the genus, being reniform to orbicular, 1–3 cm wide, with a crenate to shallowly lobed margin. The leaflet surfaces are thin-textured and often glaucous beneath. The inflorescence is a lax, terminal panicle bearing numerous small, apetalous flowers. The sepals are four, ovate, greenish to purplish, caducous. The stamens are pendulous, with slender filaments and oblong anthers. The achenes are few per flower, stipitate, fusiform to obliquely ovoid, ribbed longitudinally, 3–5 mm long including the stipe.
Thalictrum reniforme is readily distinguished from most congeners by its conspicuously reniform leaflets, a character that inspired Wallich's specific epithet. The species belongs to a taxonomically challenging genus in which species boundaries are often obscured by morphological plasticity and hybridisation. With approximately 248 occurrence records in GBIF spanning India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China, it is moderately well collected. Ecologically, it contributes to the herbaceous understorey diversity of Himalayan temperate forests. No specific conservation concerns have been raised, though continued monitoring of its forest-dependent habitats remains advisable given ongoing pressures from logging and agricultural encroachment.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Tamura: Thalictrum in Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien (1995)

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum rostellatum

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. et Thomson

BhutanPG2011 73

Description

Thalictrum rostellatum is a meadow-rue of the temperate to subalpine Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar, with some 258 occurrences aggregated in GBIF. It favours shaded, humus-rich slopes, the margins of forest, scrub and streamsides, and damp grassy banks within the broad-leaved and conifer forest belt of the Eastern Himalaya. Across its range it ascends through the montane and lower subalpine zones, where it grows in the dappled understorey alongside other moisture-loving herbs, flowering through the summer monsoon months.

It is a slender, glabrous perennial herb with a thin, creeping rhizome and erect, sparingly branched stems. The leaves are ternately decompound, the ultimate leaflets thin and membranous, obovate to broadly cuneate and shallowly lobed or toothed at the apex, often glaucous beneath. The inflorescence is a lax, few-flowered panicle of small, nodding flowers; as in the genus, the four pale sepals are caducous and petals are wanting, the floral display reduced to the pendulous stamens with filiform filaments and delicate anthers. The carpels are few and stipitate, ripening into small, stipitate achenes that bear a conspicuous slender beak, the rostellum from which the epithet derives.

The markedly beaked, stalked achenes are the principal character separating T. rostellatum from related Himalayan meadow-rues such as T. virgatum and T. reniforme. Like most Thalictrum it is anemophilous, the reduced, scentless flowers and exserted stamens reflecting wind pollination. Widespread and locally frequent through the Eastern Himalaya, it is of no particular conservation concern, though as a forest-understorey element its persistence depends on intact montane woodland.

Author: Hook.f. et Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Boivin's revisionary studies of Thalictrum

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum virgatum 

by G & P Jürgens

Hook. f. & Thomson

Nepal 99 893 ergebnis
West-Nepal Suli-Khola 2800m, July

Description

Thalictrum virgatum Hook.f. & Thomson is a widespread Sino-Himalayan meadow rue ranging from the Himalaya of Nepal, India and Bhutan eastward into south-western and central China; the comparatively large GBIF dataset of 498 occurrences attests to its abundance across the temperate Himalayan belt. It favours moist, shaded forest floors, streamsides, scrub margins and grassy slopes within the temperate to subalpine zone, broadly between 2400 and 4000 m. The photographed plant along the Suli-Khola in West Nepal at about 2800 m, flowering in July, is typical of its monsoon-season anthesis in the cool, humid, well-watered understorey of the moist temperate forest.

The species is a slender, erect, glabrous perennial herb with wiry, virgate stems arising from a short rootstock. The leaves are alternate and two- to three-pinnately compound, the ultimate leaflets small, thin, obovate to orbicular and shallowly three-lobed or crenate. The inflorescence is a lax, few-flowered, diffusely branched panicle or raceme; the small, pendulous flowers lack petals and instead bear four to five petaloid, caducous sepals that are whitish, pink-tinged or purplish. The numerous stamens have slender filaments and conspicuous anthers, giving the open flowers a delicate, dangling aspect. The fruit is a small cluster of stipitate, ribbed achenes.

Thalictrum is a large north-temperate genus of wind- and insect-pollinated petal-less Ranunculaceae, and T. virgatum belongs to the slender-stemmed, lax-panicled assemblage of the Sino-Himalaya. Its delicate habit and nodding pink-tinted flowers have brought it into specialist cultivation as a woodland ornamental. Being widespread, ecologically tolerant and locally common throughout the moist temperate Himalaya, it is of no conservation concern, and like many congeners it contains benzylisoquinoline alkaloids of pharmacological interest.

Author: Hook. f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, B. A. Lecoyer — Monographie du genre Thalictrum

Apiaceae

Tordyliopsis brunonis

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Sikkim2011 224
Sikkim Yumthang 3600m, June

Description

Tordyliopsis brunonis DC. is a monotypic genus of Apiaceae endemic to the high Himalaya. GBIF data (121 occurrences) document its occurrence in Nepal, north India (including Sikkim), Bhutan, and adjacent southwest China, where it inhabits open alpine meadows, rocky slopes, and grazed turf. The species was photographed at Yumthang in Sikkim at 3,600 m in June, consistent with its alpine ecology in the subalpine-to-alpine belt between roughly 3,000 and 4,500 m, where it flowers as snowmelt recedes. It typically grows in moist, humus-rich pockets among boulders and in herb-rich pasture.

The plant is a low perennial herb arising from a stout taproot, with short, often more or less prostrate or ascending stems. The leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with toothed leaflets, forming a basal cluster. As in most Apiaceae the inflorescence is a compound umbel, here subtended by conspicuous bracts and bracteoles; the small white to pinkish flowers give rise to dorsally compressed mericarps whose lateral wings and ribbed dorsal surface recall those of Tordylium, the genus from which the name ("resembling Tordylium") derives.

Tordyliopsis occupies an isolated position within subfamily Apioideae and has been the subject of debate regarding its tribal placement, owing to its distinctive winged fruit anatomy. As a Himalayan endemic restricted to high elevations, it is potentially vulnerable to climate-driven upslope habitat contraction and intensive summer grazing, though no formal IUCN assessment exists. It serves as a useful indicator of intact alpine meadow communities.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Pimenov & Leonov: The Genera of the Umbelliferae (1993)

Anacardiaceae

Toxicodendron succedaneum

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Kuntze

Garh 07 283 ergebnis
Indi Garhwal Belak Khal 2600m, June

Description

Toxicodendron succedaneum ((L.) Kuntze), the wax tree or Japanese wax tree, is a deciduous tree of the Anacardiaceae native across eastern and southern Asia, ranging from the Himalaya (India, Nepal) through China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan to Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia). With around 6,400 GBIF occurrences, it is well documented, and the species has also become naturalised and locally invasive in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In the Himalaya it grows in temperate broad-leaved forest, on open slopes and forest edges, ascending to roughly 2,600 m, as shown by the Garhwal record from Belak Khal at 2,600 m in June.

The plant is a small to medium-sized tree reaching 8–10 m, with smooth grey bark and a spreading crown that turns brilliant scarlet and orange in autumn. The leaves are alternate and imparipinnate, 25–35 cm long, with 7–15 lanceolate to oblong, entire, glabrous leaflets that are glaucous beneath and taper to an acuminate apex. The small, yellowish-green, functionally unisexual flowers are borne in axillary panicles, the species being dioecious. The fruit is a flattened, asymmetrical, pale brown drupe whose mesocarp is rich in vegetable wax.

As in other members of Toxicodendron, the resinous sap contains urushiol-type allergens that can cause severe contact dermatitis, and the plant should be handled with caution. Economically it has long been cultivated in Japan and China for the wax ("sumac wax") extracted from the fruits, used in candles, polishes and cosmetics. The genus was formerly merged into Rhus, but is now consistently segregated on the basis of its irritant sap and pendulous, papery-fruited inflorescences. The species is abundant and of no conservation concern.

Author: (L.) Kuntze · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Min & Barfod: Anacardiaceae in Flora of China (2008)

Asteraceae

Tragopogon gracilis

by G & P Jürgens

D.Don

Garh 07 34 ergebnis
India Garhwal Ransi at Mandakini 2000m, June

Description

Tragopogon gracilis is a slender goatsbeard of the western and central Asian mountains, distributed from Afghanistan (AF), Pakistan (PK) and the western Himalaya of India (IN) and Nepal (NP) through China (CN), Tajikistan (TJ), Kyrgyzstan (KG) and Iraq (IQ) into Russia (RU), with 312 GBIF occurrences. It grows on open grassy slopes, meadows, fields and disturbed ground in the temperate and subalpine zones. The illustrated plant was recorded in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya at Ransi above the Mandakini at about 2000 m in June, where it flowers in early summer.

It is an erect annual to biennial or short-lived perennial herb with milky latex and a slender, often sparingly branched stem. The leaves are linear to linear-lanceolate, grass-like, sheathing at the base and tapering to a fine point. The capitula are solitary and terminal, subtended by a single row of lanceolate involucral bracts that frequently exceed the ligules; all florets are ligulate (the head homogamous), yellow and sometimes purple-tinged on the outer face. The fruit is a long, beaked cypsela bearing a feathery, plumose pappus of plumose bristles that forms the conspicuous spherical seed-head typical of the genus.

Tragopogon belongs to tribe Cichorieae of Asteraceae, a group characterised by latex and ligulate florets. The genus is well known to botanists for recurrent allopolyploid speciation, and its Central Asian and Irano-Turanian species, including T. gracilis, form part of the steppe and mountain-meadow flora at the Himalayan range margin, of biogeographic interest as a western element extending into the high Himalaya.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China, Flora Iranica, Monograph of the genus Tragopogon

Boraginaceae

Trichodesma indicum

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Lehm.

Nepal 99 565 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hurikot 2700m, June
Nepal 99 564 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hurikot 2700m, June
Nepal 99 910 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hanke 2700m, July

Description

Trichodesma indicum (L.) Lehm. is a herb of the borage family widespread across the Old World tropics and subtropics, native through India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar and extending to Southeast Asia, Africa and Australia, with over 1150 GBIF occurrences. It is a weedy plant of open dry ground, fallow fields, roadsides, wastelands and gravelly slopes, typically at low elevations but ascending in the inner Himalayan valleys. In western Nepal it was recorded at Hurikot at 2700 m in June and at nearby Hanke at the same elevation in July, an unusually high station reflecting warm, dry rain-shadow habitats in the upper Karnali region.

It is an erect, branching annual covered throughout with stiff, bulbous-based bristly hairs giving a harsh, scabrid texture. The leaves are mostly opposite below and alternate above, sessile, oblong to lanceolate, the margins entire and undersurface hispid. The flowers are solitary or in lax leafy cymes, nodding on recurved pedicels; the calyx is deeply lobed and sagittate at the base, and the pale blue to bluish-white corolla is rotate with a short tube and a twisted, beaked cone of connivent anthers projecting from the throat, a hallmark of the genus. The fruit separates into four ovoid, tuberculate nutlets enclosed by the enlarged, persistent calyx.

Trichodesma is distinguished within tribe Boragineae by its protruding, spirally twisted anther cone, and T. indicum is the most widely distributed species, much used in traditional South Asian medicine. Its bristly indumentum and burr-like calyx-enclosed nutlets aid epizoochorous dispersal, while its ruderal ecology has carried it far beyond its native range as an introduced weed. Common and adaptable, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: (L.) Lehm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of British India, Boraginaceae monograph (Kazmi revision of Trichodesma)

Asteraceae

Tricholepis elongata 

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Garw 2005 274 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2550m, September

Description

Tricholepis elongata is a thistle-like composite of the Himalaya and adjacent regions, with roughly 120 GBIF occurrences recorded chiefly from India, Nepal and Pakistan. It is a plant of warm to cool temperate slopes, favouring open, sunny, often dry and somewhat rocky or grassy ground, scrub margins, banks and disturbed sites in the montane zone. The specimen photographed at Kunol in Garhwal, India, at about 2550 m in September was recorded toward the close of the monsoon, the late-summer to autumn flowering period when many montane thistle relatives in this elevational band come into bloom.

It is an erect, branched perennial or biennial herb, the stems slender and elongate as the epithet suggests, bearing alternate leaves that are linear to lanceolate, entire to toothed or somewhat divided, and frequently roughened. The capitula are solitary or few at the branch tips and are homogamous, composed wholly of slender tubular disc florets, pink to purple in colour. The involucral bracts (phyllaries) are numerous, narrow and tapering, often with finely fringed or hair-tipped margins, a feature reflected in the generic name. The fruit is a small cypsela crowned by a pappus of fine bristles or scales that promotes wind dispersal.

Tricholepis belongs to tribe Cardueae, the thistle tribe, and is distinguished by its finely dissected or ciliate phyllary appendages and bristly pappus. The genus is centred on the Indian subcontinent and the Himalaya. As a species of open and frequently disturbed montane habitats, T. elongata is not of conservation concern; such thistle-relatives provide nectar and pollen to a range of insect pollinators and contribute to the herbaceous flora of dry temperate slopes.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Hooker Flora of British India, Flora of Nepal, Susanna & Garcia-Jacas Cardueae systematics

Cucurbitaceae

Trichosanthes costata

by G & P Jürgens

Blume

Bhutan2015 160
Bhutan, Zhemgang 910m, October

Description

Trichosanthes costata Blume is a climbing cucurbit widely distributed across tropical and subtropical Asia, recorded by GBIF from China, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Laos and Bhutan, with over 600 occurrences. It grows in lowland to lower montane forest, secondary growth and thickets, scrambling over shrubs by tendrils. The Bhutanese material from Zhemgang at 910 m in October reflects its preference for the warm subtropical foothills and its autumn fruiting, when the ribbed fruits that give the epithet mature.

It is a slender, herbaceous to somewhat woody climbing vine with angular or ribbed stems and axillary tendrils. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to suborbicular, often three- to five-lobed, cordate at the base, with a dentate margin and palmate venation. The plants are monoecious or dioecious, the white flowers with the fringed corolla lobes characteristic of Trichosanthes, the males in racemes and the solitary females with an inferior ovary. The fruit is a small ellipsoid berry, conspicuously ribbed or costate, ripening red to orange, with several compressed seeds dispersed by frugivores.

Trichosanthes costata, sometimes treated under the segregate name Gymnopetalum but here accepted in the broader Trichosanthes, belongs to a large Old World genus of forest lianas distinguished by their fringed corollas, thought to attract nocturnal hawkmoth pollinators. Its wide Indo-Malesian to Sino-Himalayan range and tolerance of disturbance make it common in secondary forest, and several relatives are economically or medicinally important. It is not considered threatened, reflecting its colonising habit.

Author: Blume · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, de Wilde & Duyfjes revisions of Asian Cucurbitaceae (Trichosanthes)

Cucurbitaceae

Trichosanthes tricuspidata

by G & P Jürgens

Lour.

Garh 07 292 ergebnis
India Garhwal, Belak Khal 2750m, June

Description

Trichosanthes tricuspidata is a climbing cucurbit widely distributed through tropical and subtropical Asia, from the Himalaya (India, Nepal, Bhutan) across China, Myanmar, Thailand and Indochina to Sri Lanka, Malesia, the Philippines and northern Australia. It is a liana of forest margins, thickets, secondary scrub and hedgerows, scrambling over shrubs and trees by means of tendrils. Though most frequent in the lowlands and lower hills, it ascends well into the temperate zone; the plant recorded at Belak Khal in Garhwal at 2,750 m in June marks an upper-elevation occurrence in the western Himalaya, flowering with the early summer warmth.

The plant is a perennial herbaceous to woody climber with branched tendrils and a tuberous rootstock. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to orbicular in outline and palmately three- to five-lobed, the lobes often again toothed or cuspidate, cordate at the base. The plant is dioecious; the flowers are white with the petals fringed into the long, lacy filaments characteristic of the genus, the male flowers in racemes and the females solitary. The fruit is a globose to ovoid berry that ripens bright orange-red, marked with pale stripes when young, containing flattened seeds embedded in pulp.

The genus Trichosanthes, distinguished by its delicately fimbriate corolla lobes, is a large Indo-Pacific group of considerable ethnobotanical importance. Trichosanthes tricuspidata, described by Loureiro, is well known in traditional medicine, its roots and fruit used in Ayurvedic and folk preparations despite the toxic, purgative nature of the fruit pulp. Widespread and ecologically versatile, ranging from tropical lowland to temperate montane forest, the species is common and is not regarded as threatened.

Author: Lour. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, de Boer & Thulin: Trichosanthes revision