D.Don
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