(Maxim.) S.C.Chen, P.J.Cribb & S.W.Gale
Description
Galearis roborovskii is a terrestrial orchid distributed across the high mountains of Central and East Asia, with georeferenced records documented from China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Japan and Russia, comprising about 154 occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of cool, moist alpine and subalpine habitats, favouring open meadows, grassy slopes, streambanks and forest margins where snowmelt maintains soil moisture through the growing season. The species generally occurs between roughly 2500 and 4000 m, and the population photographed at Chere in West Nepal at about 3000 m in June, at the onset of the monsoon flowering season, falls within this montane belt.
It is a small, glabrous, tuberous geophyte arising from ovoid to oblong fleshy tuberoids. The slender, erect stem bears one or two basal leaves that are oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, sheathing at the base and often fleshy. The inflorescence is a short, few-flowered terminal raceme subtended by leaf-like bracts. The flowers are purple to rose-pink, with the dorsal sepal and petals converging to form a loose hood (galea) over the column; the lateral sepals spread or are reflexed, and the trilobed labellum is deflexed and produced basally into a slender, cylindric to clavate spur. The fruit is a small erect dehiscent capsule releasing abundant dust-like seeds.
The genus Galearis was resurrected and recircumscribed on molecular grounds, and this species was transferred from Orchis by S.C.Chen, P.J.Cribb and S.W.Gale; it sits within subtribe Orchidinae. Like most temperate terrestrial orchids it depends on mycorrhizal fungi for germination and establishment, rendering it sensitive to grazing, trampling and habitat disturbance. Though presently widespread and not formally assessed as threatened across its broad Himalayan to Sino-Russian range, localised populations warrant monitoring against alpine land-use pressures.
Author: (Maxim.) S.C.Chen, P.J.Cribb & S.W.Gale · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Pearce & Cribb The Orchids of Bhutan