(Wall. ex DC.) C.Jeffrey & Y.L.Chen
Description
Synotis kunthiana is a Sino-Himalayan composite distributed across the central and eastern Himalaya, with verified records from India, Nepal and Bhutan and roughly 56 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of the upper temperate and subalpine zones, typically occupying moist forest margins, shrubberies, streamsides and open herb-rich slopes between about 2800 and 3800 m. The photographed population in the Garhwal Himalaya, in the renowned Valley of Flowers at around 3400 m, flowering in September, exemplifies its late-season phenology in tall-herb communities flushed by the receding monsoon.
It is a perennial herb with erect, often somewhat woody-based stems arising from a short rhizome, the stems leafy and frequently floccose-tomentose when young. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, with a serrate to denticulate margin and a thinly arachnoid-pubescent abaxial surface. The capitula are numerous, small and arranged in lax terminal corymbose-paniculate cymes; each head bears an involucre of uniseriate phyllaries subtended by a few calyculate bracteoles, with yellow radiate ray florets surrounding the disc. The fruit is a cylindrical, ribbed cypsela crowned by a copious white pappus of fine barbellate bristles.
The genus Synotis was segregated from Senecio sensu lato by C. Jeffrey and Y. L. Chen on the basis of style-branch and capitular characters, and S. kunthiana is based on the Wallichian Senecio kunthianus. The species remains locally common across its range and is not considered threatened, though its dependence on intact subalpine tall-herb meadows makes it a useful indicator of grazing pressure and habitat continuity.
Author: (Wall. ex DC.) C.Jeffrey & Y.L.Chen · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Jeffrey & Chen revision of Asiatic Senecioneae (Synotis)