(DC.) C. Norman
Description
Physospermopsis obtusiuscula is an alpine umbellifer of the eastern and central Himalaya, distributed across China (Tibet and adjacent provinces), Nepal, northern India and Bhutan, the roughly 136 GBIF records tracing this high-mountain arc. It inhabits open alpine meadows, moist grassy slopes, scree margins and the edges of dwarf-rhododendron and juniper scrub, characteristically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The photographed plant from Dzongri in Sikkim at 4100 m in August illustrates its late-summer flowering on a damp, high-alpine pasture, where it grows among cushion plants and short turf.
It is a small to medium perennial herb arising from a slender taproot or short rhizome, with one to few erect, ribbed, sometimes purplish stems. The leaves are mostly basal, with sheathing petioles, the blade ternately to pinnately dissected into narrow, obtuse ultimate segments. The inflorescence is a compound umbel subtended by conspicuous, often leafy bracts and bracteoles; the small flowers bear white to pinkish petals. The fruit is a mericarp pair, ovoid and somewhat laterally compressed, with prominent ribs, the genus name alluding to the inflated or bladder-like fruit character within the Apioideae.
The genus Physospermopsis comprises a small group of high-Asian umbellifers centred on the Himalaya and the Hengduan Mountains, allied to Pleurospermum and segregated chiefly on fruit and vittae characters. P. obtusiuscula, distinguished by its blunt leaf segments, is a typical element of the wet alpine flora at the upper limit of vascular plant growth. It is not formally assessed for conservation but, like other narrowly distributed alpine umbellifers, is potentially sensitive to grazing pressure and climate-driven upslope shifts.
Author: (DC.) C. Norman · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Umbelliferae of the Himalaya (revision)