Tag:

Alpine (>3500 m)

Lamiaceae

Salvia hians 

by G & P Jürgens

Royle ex Benth.

Nepal 99 867 ergebnis
West-Nepal Sanu Bheri 3500m, July

Description

Salvia hians is a Himalayan herbaceous perennial of the temperate to subalpine belt of the western and central Himalaya, with occurrences in India, Nepal, Pakistan and adjacent China; its c. 217 georeferenced records (further reports from Europe and North America reflect cultivated material). It favours open grassy slopes, forest margins, alpine meadows and moist rocky banks, typically between 2400 and 4000 m. The photographed plant from the Sanu Bheri valley in West Nepal at 3500 m, flowering in July, is characteristic of its summer-flowering subalpine habitat among tall herbs in the monsoon-watered turf.

It forms an erect, somewhat sticky-pubescent herb 30-90 cm tall arising from a stout rootstock, with mostly basal, long-petioled, ovate-cordate leaves bearing crenate to doubly serrate margins and a rugose surface. The inflorescence is a lax terminal raceme of distant verticillasters. The corolla is showy, c. 3-5 cm long and deep violet-blue to purple, conspicuously bilabiate with a strongly hooded, gaping (hence "hians") upper lip and a broad lower lip. The calyx is bell-shaped and two-lipped, and the two fertile stamens bear the characteristic lever mechanism of Salvia. The fruit comprises four smooth ovoid nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Described by Royle ex Bentham, S. hians belongs to the large, near-cosmopolitan genus Salvia, the most species-rich genus of Lamiaceae, and represents the showy Himalayan element of the subgenus Sclarea-group. The flowers are pollinated by long-tongued bees and bumblebees exploiting the staminal lever. Locally the species enters folk medicine and is occasionally grown ornamentally. It remains widespread and is not currently regarded as threatened, though habitat degradation through grazing and tourism affects some populations.

Author: Royle ex Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China, Hedge's revision of Himalayan Salvia (Lamiaceae)

Lamiaceae

Salvia wardii

by G & P Jürgens

(E.Peter)

BhutanPG2011 130
Bhutan Kupang 3550m, June

Description

Salvia wardii is a Sino-Himalayan sage distributed across the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from southern China (the Tibetan borderlands), Bhutan, Nepal and India, with an outlying record from Sri Lanka and only around 73 GBIF occurrences, a comparatively narrowly known species. It is a plant of subalpine and alpine habitats, growing on open grassy slopes, scrub margins, rocky banks and meadow clearings in the upper temperate to subalpine zone. The image documents the species at Kupang in Bhutan at about 3550 m in June, where it flowers among summer meadow vegetation alongside other perennial herbs of the high pastures.

It is an erect perennial herb arising from a woody rootstock, with quadrangular, pubescent stems. The leaves are mostly basal and lower-cauline, ovate to oblong, cordate to truncate at the base, crenate-serrate, rugose and softly hairy, on long petioles. The inflorescence is a lax terminal raceme of widely spaced verticillasters, each with few flowers. The calyx is bilabiate and glandular-pubescent; the corolla is showy, deep violet to purple-blue, with an exserted upper lip and a broad spreading lower lip, and the connective of the two fertile stamens is elongated and lever-like, characteristic of Salvia. The fruit comprises four smooth nutlets.

Named for the plant collector Frank Kingdon-Ward, Salvia wardii belongs to the Asian section of Salvia centred on the Sino-Himalayan mountains, a centre of diversity for the genus. The staminal lever mechanism promotes outcrossing by long-tongued bees and bumblebees foraging in the brief alpine summer. Its restricted range and small number of records suggest it warrants monitoring, though no formal threat assessment has been made.

Author: (E.Peter) · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Salvia: Flora Sinica account, World Checklist of Lamiaceae

Rosaceae

Sanguisorba filiformis

by G & P Jürgens

(Hook.f.) Hand.-Mazz.

Sikkim2011 119
Sikkim Chopta-valley 4100m, June
Sikkim2011 118
Sikkim Chopta-valley 4100m, June

Description

Sanguisorba filiformis (Hook.f.) Hand.-Mazz. is a slender, alpine perennial herb of the Rosaceae, distributed across the eastern and central Himalaya and the mountains of southwestern and central China. Its documented range encompasses China, Bhutan, India and the Korean Peninsula, with GBIF recording 471 georeferenced occurrences. The species is a characteristic component of moist alpine meadows, streamsides, seepage slopes and open turf at elevations of roughly 3,500–4,800 m. The photographed material from the Chopta valley in Sikkim at 4,100 m in June represents typical high-altitude habitat, where the plant flowers as the snow-melt season advances.

The plant develops a short, woody rhizome bearing a basal rosette of pinnately compound leaves; the leaflets are small, ovate to oblong, crenate-serrate at the margins, glabrous and somewhat glaucous beneath. From this rosette arise wiry, filiform, often nodding flowering stems that give the species its epithet. The inflorescence is a small, loose, capitate to shortly oblong head of few flowers; unlike most Sanguisorba the perianth is comparatively reduced, with whitish to pale pink segments, four stamens, and exserted filaments. The fruit is a small dry achene enclosed within the persistent hypanthium.

Formerly placed in the segregate genus Poterium and the subgenus Sanguisorbella, the taxon is sometimes treated under Sanguisorba filiformis as the accepted name, reflecting its distinctive reduced floral architecture. Its restriction to high-altitude wetland and meadow habitats makes it a useful indicator of intact alpine hydrology, and like many Himalayan turf species it may be sensitive to grazing pressure and climate-driven shifts in snowpack.

Author: (Hook.f.) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 9, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Nordborg: Sanguisorba — a monographic study (1966)

Asteraceae

Saussurea gossypiphora

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Sikkim2003 293 P407
Sikkim Samiti-Lake 4400m, August
Nepal 99 626 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 4900m, July

Description

Saussurea gossypiphora, the snowball or cotton-headed saussurea, is a remarkable high-alpine herb of the Himalaya and adjacent Tibetan China, recorded only from China and Nepal in GBIF with a mere 26 occurrences, reflecting both its extreme habitat and its restricted, fragmented distribution. It is among the highest-growing flowering plants, inhabiting open scree, moraine, gravelly alpine slopes and the margins of glacial debris in the upper alpine and subnival zone. The images document it in Sikkim near Samiti Lake at about 4400 m in August and in West Nepal on the Kagmara-La at around 4900 m in July, among the most extreme elevations at which it grows.

It is a stout, dwarf perennial herb forming a dense rosette, in which the upper leaves and the capitula are enveloped in a thick mass of long white woolly hairs forming a globose, cotton-wool-like dome. Beneath this insulating covering the leaves are oblanceolate, deeply toothed and arachnoid-hairy. The numerous small discoid capitula are clustered at the apex within the wool, each with purplish tubular florets and a multiseriate involucre. The fruit is a glabrous achene crowned by a feathery, plumose pappus aiding wind dispersal once the protective wool opens.

The dense lanate indumentum is a celebrated adaptation to the subnival environment, trapping heat, buffering night frost and ultraviolet radiation, and sheltering pollinating insects, paralleling the "glasshouse" and "woolly" growth forms found in other high-elevation Saussurea and Rheum. As a slow-growing, habitat-specialised plant of limited range it is potentially vulnerable to climate warming and collection pressure, though it has not been formally assessed.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz Monograph of the Genus Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea graminifolia 

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Garw 2005 328 ergebnis
India Garhwal Bagubasa 4100m, September

Description

Saussurea graminifolia is a high-alpine composite of the Himalaya and Tibetan borderlands, distributed across Nepal, India, China and Bhutan, with about 127 GBIF occurrences. It is a true plant of the upper alpine zone, occupying screes, fine gravel, glacial moraine, stony meadows and exposed ridges generally above 4000 m and reaching well over 4500 m. The collection from Bagubasa in Garhwal, India, at 4100 m in September corresponds to its late-season flowering, when these wind-swept slopes near the limit of vascular plant life carry the characteristic cushion and rosette flora of the region.

It is a low, tufted perennial herb growing from a stout rootstock, with very narrow, grass-like (graminifolious) basal leaves that form a dense rosette, the epithet alluding to this distinctive linear foliage. One or few short scapes bear a cluster of capitula crowded among the leaves and often partly enveloped by them. The flower heads are discoid, containing only tubular florets that are purple to violet, surrounded by overlapping involucral bracts. As in Saussurea generally the fruit is an achene topped by a pappus of feathery (plumose) inner bristles and shorter outer ones.

Saussurea belongs to tribe Cardueae of the Asteraceae and is a hallmark genus of the Sino-Himalayan alpine zone, where many species show adaptations such as woolly indumentum or translucent bracts (the "snowball" and "glasshouse" plants) that buffer the harsh, cold, high-radiation environment. Though not formally threatened, such specialised high-elevation endemics are sensitive to climate warming and to harvesting where Saussurea species are used medicinally.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Saussurea monograph (Lipschitz)

Asteraceae

Saussurea obvallata

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Edgew.

Sikkim2003 453 G623
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3800m August
Sikkim2003 451 P628
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3800m August

Description

Saussurea obvallata is a high-alpine herb of the Sino-Himalayan region, distributed across the mountains of China, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan, with some 350 georeferenced records documenting a broadly continuous arc along the Greater Himalaya. It is a plant of open alpine meadows, moraines, scree slopes and rocky pastures, typically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The photographed material from the Chopta Valley in Sikkim at 3800 m, flowering in August, is characteristic of its preferred late-monsoon habitat on moist, well-drained alpine turf where snow lies long into early summer.

The species is a stout perennial arising from a thick taproot, with an erect, simple, leafy stem. The lower leaves are oblanceolate and dentate, narrowing to a winged petiole, while the upper leaves grade into membranous, pale, semi-translucent bracts that arch inward to enclose the inflorescence. These greenish-straw involucral bracts form the conspicuous globose to urn-shaped "lantern" that almost entirely hides the cluster of dark purple capitula within. The florets are tubular and purple-black, and the achenes bear a feathery, plumose pappus that aids wind dispersal.

The enclosing bract chamber is widely interpreted as an adaptation that buffers temperature, protects pollinating insects from cold and wind, and shelters developing florets at extreme elevation, a striking example of greenhouse-like alpine convergence shared with Rheum nobile. Long known in Himalayan tradition as the sacred "Brahma Kamal," the plant is heavily collected for ornament and medicine, and populations near pilgrimage routes face local pressure of regional conservation concern.

Author: (DC.) Edgew. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz monograph of Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea polystichoides

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 307 P433
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4250m August

Description

Saussurea polystichoides is a high-alpine perennial herb of the eastern and central Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, northern India, Bhutan and adjacent south-western China, with a small documented base of about 43 occurrences consistent with its restricted, high-elevation habitat. It grows on open alpine turf, screes, moraines and rocky slopes, typically between roughly 4000 and 4800 m. The specimen shown was photographed near Saniti Lake in Sikkim at about 4250 m in August, when these short-season alpines flower during the brief post-monsoon window above the treeline.

The plant is a low, cushion-forming or tufted herb arising from a stout caudex clothed in old leaf bases, the name polystichoides alluding to the fern-like, many-ranked rosette of finely divided leaves. The leaves are pinnately lobed to pinnatisect, narrow and densely arranged, often white-woolly to give protection against cold and intense radiation. The capitula are sessile or shortly stalked and aggregated within the leaf rosette; each head bears tubular, purple to violet disc florets enclosed by imbricate, often lanate phyllaries. The fruit is a glabrous cypsela crowned by a feathery, plumose pappus.

Saussurea (Asteraceae, tribe Cardueae) is a large Asian genus particularly diversified in the high Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, where many species have evolved dense indumentum or translucent bracts as adaptations to extreme alpine conditions. S. polystichoides belongs to the group of cushion- or rosette-forming saw-worts of the highest screes. Pollinated by alpine insects and wind-dispersed via its plumose pappus, it is a narrow-range, habitat-specialist endemic of conservation interest given its limited area and sensitivity to climatic warming.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz monograph of Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea roylei

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Nepal 99 480 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3600m, June

Description

Saussurea roylei is an alpine composite of the western and central Himalaya, distributed through India, Nepal, Pakistan and adjacent China (IN, NP, PK, CN), with about 223 recorded occurrences. It grows in open alpine meadows, on grassy and stony slopes, screes and rocky ground in the subalpine to alpine zone, broadly between about 3000 and 4500 m. The plant shown here was photographed at Churta Khola in West Nepal at 3600 m in June, an elevation and early-summer flowering season typical of the species, where it occupies the herb-rich turf and gravelly margins of high pastures shortly after snowmelt.

The plant is a low perennial herb arising from a stout rootstock, with a simple or sparingly branched, often leafy stem. The leaves are elliptic to lanceolate, the basal ones narrowed to a winged petiole, the margins entire to toothed and the lower surface frequently thinly woolly. The flower heads (capitula) are clustered in a dense terminal corymb, each head an involucre of imbricate, often purplish-tipped bracts enclosing numerous small, tubular, purple to violet disc florets; ray florets are absent, as throughout the genus. The fruit is a glabrous cypsela (achene) crowned by a pappus of feathery inner and shorter, scabrid outer bristles aiding wind dispersal.

Saussurea (tribe Cardueae, the thistle alliance of the Asteraceae) is a large and taxonomically intricate genus that reaches spectacular diversity in the high Sino-Himalaya, including the woolly and bracteate 'snow lotus' alpines. S. roylei belongs to the assemblage of meadow-dwelling, non-cottony species and is pollinated by bumblebees and other alpine insects drawn to the discoid heads. Widespread across the western Himalaya and locally common in alpine grassland, it is not of conservation concern, although high-altitude Saussurea species generally face pressure from grazing and harvesting.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Saussurea: A Monograph (Lipschitz)

Asteraceae

Saussurea simpsoniana

by GP Jürgens

(Fielding & Gardner) Lipsch.

Garw 2005 337 ergebnis
India Garhwal Bagubas 4150m, October
Garw 2005 336 ergebnis
India Garhwal Bagubas 4150m, October

Description

Saussurea simpsoniana is a high-alpine cushion thistle of the Himalaya and adjacent ranges. GBIF documents it from Nepal, India, China, Pakistan and Bhutan, with around 260 occurrences concentrated along the main Himalayan axis. It inhabits open stony slopes, screes, glacial moraines and alpine turf, typically between 4000 and 5500 m, often in the uppermost zone where vascular plant life thins out. The collection figured here was made at Bagubas in Garhwal, northern India, at 4150 m in October, late in the alpine season when the plant persists as a dense persistent rosette.

It forms a compact, stemless or short-stemmed perennial with a thick taproot and a rosette of oblanceolate, white-woolly leaves. The capitula are aggregated into a dense terminal cluster nestled among the leaves and enveloped by long, dense, silky-white lanate hairs that form a protective woolly mass. Individual florets are tubular and purple, with bristly pappus; the involucral bracts are concealed within the wool. This dense indumentum, characteristic of the snowball saussureas, traps heat and shelters the developing achenes from intense ultraviolet radiation, desiccation and frost.

The species belongs to Saussurea subgenus Amphilaena, the woolly snowball group whose adaptations to extreme altitude have made them classic subjects of alpine ecophysiology. The woolly bracts elevate floral temperatures and attract the few high-altitude pollinators active in this environment. Widely collected for Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine, several relatives in this group face harvesting pressure; although S. simpsoniana is not formally assessed as threatened, its restricted high-elevation habitat warrants monitoring under warming alpine climates.

Author: (Fielding & Gardner) Lipsch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, A revision of the genus Saussurea (Asteraceae: Cardueae)

Asteraceae

Saussurea stella

by GP Jürgens

Maxim.

Sikkim2003 511 G712
Sikkim Yume Samdong 4600m August

Description

Saussurea stella is a high-alpine herb distributed across the eastern Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, recorded from China (Xizang, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu), Bhutan and India, with some 821 georeferenced occurrences documented in GBIF. It occupies open alpine meadows, marshy turf, gravelly flushes and the margins of glacial streams, typically between 3000 and 5400 m. The plant photographed at Yume Samdong in northern Sikkim at about 4600 m in August is characteristic of the wet, peaty seepage slopes the species favours during the monsoon, where it forms part of a low cushion-and-rosette sward exposed to intense radiation, nightly frost and a brief growing season.

The species is a stemless, near-acaulescent perennial forming a flat, star-shaped rosette pressed against the substrate from a stout taproot. The numerous lanceolate to linear leaves are glabrous, entire and often suffused with purplish-red, radiating symmetrically and giving the plant its epithet stella. The capitula are sessile and densely clustered at the rosette centre, each involucre with imbricate, purple-tinged phyllaries enclosing tubular purple florets; the corollas are deeply lobed and the anthers tailed at the base. Fruit is a glabrous cylindrical achene with a double pappus of short outer and longer plumose inner bristles.

A member of the large genus Saussurea (subtribe Saussureinae, tribe Cardueae), S. stella belongs to the rosette-forming, ground-hugging guild that recurs in Tibetan alpine floras as an adaptation to cold, windy, high-irradiance environments, the flattened habit and dark pigmentation enhancing heat capture and protecting against ultraviolet stress. Pollination is by alpine flies and bees, and the plumose pappus enables wind dispersal. Though not formally assessed as threatened and locally abundant, it is sensitive to grazing and the warming-driven contraction of alpine seepage habitats.

Author: Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Lipschitz Monograph of Saussurea