Tag:

Autumn

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens scabrida

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 138 1
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3100m September

Description

Impatiens scabrida is a robust annual balsam native to the Himalaya, its core range spanning India, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Bhutan, though GBIF's 243 occurrences also include many records from Europe and elsewhere (Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Poland and others), reflecting its naturalisation as a garden escape outside its homeland. In its native range it grows on moist shaded banks, forest margins, ravines and streamsides. The photographed plant is from the Haa Valley in Bhutan at about 3100 m, flowering in September, in cool, damp temperate woodland.

The plant is a succulent, erect annual with translucent, often reddish, branched stems that are scabrid (rough), as the epithet records. The leaves are ovate to lanceolate, serrate, with gland-tipped teeth. The yellow flowers are zygomorphic and spurred in the manner of the genus: a saccate lower sepal drawn into a slender curved spur, an upper standard petal and paired lateral united petals forming wings. The fruit is a fleshy, explosively dehiscent capsule that ejects its seeds on contact, giving balsams their touch-me-not behaviour.

The species is accepted. Impatiens is a vast, taxonomically complex genus centred on tropical Asia and Africa, with the Himalaya a major centre of diversity and endemism. The yellow-flowered Himalayan balsams are pollinated chiefly by long-tongued bees, and the ballistic seed dispersal aids rapid colonisation, the very trait underlying this species' spread in European riparian and disturbed habitats. Its naturalised populations make it a subject of interest in invasion ecology.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Grey-Wilson's monograph Impatiens of Africa and Asian studies, Flora of Nepal

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens scitula

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Bhutan2012 334
Bhutan Dochu-La 3200m, September
Bhutan2012 931
Bhutan Tumching-La 3600m, October

Description

Impatiens scitula is a high-montane balsam of the eastern Himalaya, known from a small set of GBIF records (27 occurrences) in Bhutan, China and India. It grows in cool, humid subalpine settings along forest streams, shaded banks and seepage slopes near the upper limit of fir and rhododendron forest, flowering late in the growing season after the summer monsoon. It was recorded on the Bhutanese passes of Dochu-La at about 3200 m in September and Tumching-La at about 3600 m in October, elevations notably higher than those of most lowland balsams and indicative of its cold-tolerant montane preference.

It is a succulent annual herb with translucent, glabrous stems swollen at the nodes. The leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate, serrate to crenate-serrate with gland-tipped teeth, and tapered to a petiole. The flowers are zygomotphic and showy for their size, borne on axillary peduncles; the lower sepal is produced into a slender curved or incurved spur and the standard and wing petals form the elaborate, bilaterally symmetric corolla typical of the genus. The fruit is a fleshy, club-shaped capsule that dehisces explosively, the coiling valves flinging out the seeds.

Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) is exceptionally diverse in the Sino-Himalayan mountains, where high-elevation species such as I. scitula are often narrowly distributed and distinguished by fine details of spur and petal form. Its restriction to a few eastern Himalayan localities at high elevation makes it a regional endemic of biogeographic interest. Although no formal conservation assessment is published, narrowly ranged high-altitude balsams of this kind are potentially vulnerable to climatic warming and habitat disturbance.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of British India, Grey-Wilson and allied revisions of Asian Impatiens (Balsaminaceae)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens spirifer

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. et Thomson

Bhutan2015 60
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October
Bhutan2015 59
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October
BhutanPG2011 37
Bhutan Pele-La, 2800m June
Bhutan2012 1338
Bhutan Pemagatse, 2000m October

Description

Impatiens spirifer is an annual balsam of the eastern Himalaya, recorded by GBIF in some 52 occurrences from India, China, Bhutan and Nepal. It favours cool, shaded and humid situations such as forest margins, ravine banks, seepage slopes and roadside ditches in the temperate and upper-subtropical belt, broadly between 1800 and 3000 m. The accompanying images were taken in Bhutan at Wangdi Phodrang and Pemagatse (2000 m, October) and the Pele-La (2800 m, June), documenting a long flowering season that extends through the monsoon into autumn on moist, organic-rich soils where balsams thrive.

The plant is a succulent, glabrous herb with translucent, often reddish-tinged stems that are erect to ascending and somewhat swollen at the nodes. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, crenate-serrate with the lowermost teeth sometimes gland-tipped, narrowing to a petiole. The flowers are zygomorphic and resupinate, borne singly or in few-flowered axillary clusters; the lower sepal forms a navicular spur that is slender and incurved, while the lateral united petals are deeply two-lobed. The fruit is a fleshy, fusiform capsule that dehisces explosively, the valves coiling to fling out the small seeds.

Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) is among the largest angiosperm genera, exceptionally species-rich and rapidly radiating in the Sino-Himalayan region, where narrow endemism and floral micromorphology drive species delimitation. GBIF treats I. spirifer as accepted. Like many montane balsams it is closely tied to perennially moist microhabitats and is thus vulnerable to drainage, disturbance and shifts in monsoon reliability, although it remains locally frequent within suitable forest.

Author: Hook.f. et Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Grey-Wilson monograph of Impatiens (Balsaminaceae)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens tripetala

by G & P Jürgens

Roxb. ex DC.

Bhutan2015 120
Bhutan Galephug 600m, October
Bh09 288 G471
Bhutan Galephug 600m, October

Description

Impatiens tripetala is a succulent annual balsam of the warm, humid lowlands and foothills of the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burma. GBIF lists 77 occurrences, centred on India, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal, with additional scattered or cultivated records reported under several country codes. It grows in moist shaded ground along forest streams, ditches and disturbed seepage sites in the subtropical belt, flowering late in and after the monsoon. The species was recorded at Galephug in southern Bhutan at about 600 m in October, a low foothill elevation reflecting its preference for warm, perhumid habitats.

It is an erect, glabrous herb with translucent, watery stems that are swollen at the nodes, rooting at the lower joints. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, crenate-serrate with the teeth often gland-tipped, and narrowed to a petiole. The zygomorphic flowers are borne on axillary peduncles; the lower sepal forms a spurred saccate pouch, and the corolla shows the reduced, apparently three-petalled appearance to which the epithet tripetala refers. The fruit is the characteristic fleshy, explosively dehiscent capsule of the genus, scattering its seeds by elastic recoil of the valves.

Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) is an enormous genus with a major centre of diversity in the Sino-Himalayan region, where many species are narrow endemics distinguished by flower colour, spur form and capsule shape. I. tripetala forms part of the rich lowland-to-submontane balsam flora of the eastern Himalaya. As an annual of moist, often disturbed ground it can be locally common, but the wider group is notable for high endemism and sensitivity to forest loss and hydrological change, themes relevant to its conservation context.

Author: Roxb. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Grey-Wilson monograph Impatiens of Africa and Asian revisions of Balsaminaceae

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens uncipetala

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke ex Hook.f.

Bhutan2015 91
Bhutan Galephug 1200m, October

Description

Impatiens uncipetala is a Himalayan balsam recorded from India, Nepal, China and Bhutan, with 43 georeferenced occurrences across the central and eastern Himalaya. As with most Impatiens it is a moisture-demanding herb of shaded, humid habitats, growing along stream banks, on dripping rock faces, in ditches and on the floor of moist subtropical to lower temperate forest. The plant photographed at Galephug in Bhutan at 1200 m in October reflects its low-elevation, post-monsoon flowering, when the soft, succulent annuals reach maturity and bloom freely in the warm, wet foothill forests.

The plant is a tender annual herb with translucent, watery, brittle stems that are often swollen at the nodes and root readily where they touch the ground. The leaves are simple, alternate or sometimes subopposite, ovate to lanceolate, with toothed margins. The zygomorphic flowers hang on slender pedicels and display the characteristic balsam architecture: three sepals, the lowermost enlarged into a saccate nectar spur, and five petals in which the two lateral pairs are fused into wing-like structures. The epithet uncipetala refers to a hooked petal appendage. The fruit is a fleshy, five-valved capsule that splits and coils explosively, ejecting the seeds.

Impatiens is one of the largest angiosperm genera, with a major centre of diversity in the Sino-Himalayan and Indo-Burmese region where narrowly endemic species abound. Its explosive capsules and reliance on humid microhabitats foster localised, often patchy distributions. The moderate occurrence count for I. uncipetala suggests a regional but uncommon species best conserved through maintenance of intact moist forest.

Author: C.B.Clarke ex Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Impatiens of the Himalaya and China monographic studies (Balsaminaceae), Flowers of the Himalaya (Polunin & Stainton)

Asteraceae

Inula grandiflora 

by G & P Jürgens

Willd.

Garw 2005 26 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal 2950m, September
Garw 2005 27 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal 2950m September

Description

Inula grandiflora Willd. is a stout perennial composite of the western and central Himalaya, ranging from Pakistan and northern India through Nepal, with related records extending into the wider Irano-Turanian and Caucasian region (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia). It occupies open subalpine and alpine slopes, grassy meadows, forest clearings and rocky banks in the upper-temperate to alpine belt. The photographed plants from Garhwal in the Indian Himalaya at 2950 m, flowering in September, exemplify its preference for sunny, well-drained montane grassland where it flowers late in the season as the monsoon eases, frequently forming conspicuous stands on open hillsides.

The plant produces erect, leafy, often somewhat hairy stems from a woody rootstock. The alternate leaves are oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, sessile and frequently half-clasping the stem, with finely toothed margins and a roughened or pubescent surface. The inflorescence is a large, solitary or few-headed terminal capitulum (the epithet grandiflora referring to its size), subtended by overlapping herbaceous involucral bracts; the head bears numerous narrow, spreading golden-yellow ray florets surrounding a central disc of tubular florets. The fruit is a ribbed, cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of fine bristles that aids wind dispersal.

Within the genus Inula (Asteraceae, tribe Inuleae) this is one of the showiest Himalayan species, valued horticulturally and used locally in traditional medicine. Its large, nectar- and pollen-rich heads attract bees, butterflies and other insects, making it an important late-season forage plant. Though not globally threatened and locally common, its alpine grassland habitats are subject to grazing and climate-driven upslope vegetation shifts.

Author: Willd. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Flora of China (Asteraceae), Compositae of the Himalaya

Asteraceae

Inula hookeri

by GP Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2012 181
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3200m September
Bhutan2012 846
Bhutan Nangsephal, 2700m October
Bhutan2012 848
Bhutan Nangsephal, 2700m October

Description

Inula hookeri is a showy yellow-flowered composite of the eastern Himalaya, native to China, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Myanmar, and frequently cultivated in temperate gardens, which accounts for British, Irish, North American and Antipodean records; GBIF lists about 383 occurrences. It grows in subalpine meadows, open forest, shrubby slopes and grassy clearings, mostly between about 2400 and 3600 m. The photographed plants are from the Haar valley in Bhutan at 3200 m in September and from Nangsephal at 2700 m in October, flowering through the late monsoon into autumn.

The plant is an erect, hairy perennial herb arising from a short rhizome, with leafy, softly pubescent stems. The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, acuminate, finely toothed and clasping or sessile at the base, hispid on both surfaces. The capitula are large and solitary or few at the stem tips, radiate, with numerous very narrow, thread-like, pale to greenish-yellow ray florets spreading in a fringed circle around a disc of deeper yellow tubular florets; the involucre is hemispherical with linear, leafy, spreading phyllaries. The fruit is a small ribbed cypsela bearing a pappus of a single row of barbellate bristles.

Inula belongs to the tribe Inuleae, and I. hookeri, named for J. D. Hooker, is distinctive for its softly spidery, narrow-rayed heads that open from woolly buds. Valued in horticulture for its long flowering and attractiveness to pollinators, it is common in the wild and not considered threatened.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Systematics of Inula and allied genera (Inuleae)

Convolvulaceae

Ipomoea batatas

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Lam.

Bhutan2012 785
Bhutan Zemgang 1850m, October
Nepal 95 42 P74 ergebnis
Nepal Darondi-Khola 670m
Nepal 95 43 W75 ergebnis
Nepal Darondi-Khola 670m

Description

Ipomoea batatas, the sweet potato, is a cultigen of Neotropical origin now grown and naturalised throughout the tropics and warm-temperate world; GBIF records 38,679 occurrences spanning the Americas (Peru, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Colombia, Ecuador and others) through to Asia and Oceania, including Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Papua New Guinea. In the Himalaya it is a cultivated and escaped plant of village margins, terraced fields and warm valley bottoms. The illustrated material comes from Bhutan, Zhemgang, at about 1850 m in October, and from Nepal along the Darondi Khola at around 670 m, reflecting the sub-tropical farmed elevations where it is grown.

The plant is a perennial herbaceous vine with prostrate or twining stems that root at the nodes and arise from swollen, edible storage roots (tubers) of variable colour. Leaves are alternate, petiolate and highly variable, from broadly ovate-cordate to deeply palmately lobed, with an entire or sinuate margin. Flowers are borne in few-flowered axillary cymes; the corolla is funnelform and infundibuliform, lavender to pink-purple with a darker throat, subtended by a small calyx of unequal sepals. The five stamens are unequal and included, the ovary superior; the fruit is a small capsule, though many cultivars set seed poorly.

The sweet potato is a hexaploid of long domestication, its wild progenitors lying in Central America, and it ranks among the world's most important root crops. POWO and GBIF accept the name. Its trans-Pacific presence in pre-Columbian Oceania remains a celebrated biogeographic puzzle bearing on early human dispersal.

Author: (L.) Lam. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, World Checklist of Convolvulaceae (Ipomoea monograph)

Convolvulaceae

Ipomoea nil

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Roth

Bhutan2015 304
Bhutan between Zhemgang-Trongsa 1700m, October

Description

Ipomoea nil is a pantropical annual morning glory of uncertain native origin, most likely originating in tropical America but now cosmopolitan in warm regions worldwide. It occurs throughout South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, Africa, and the Americas, with over 13,000 occurrence records in GBIF spanning more than 70 countries. The species thrives in disturbed habitats, field margins, roadsides, waste ground, and forest edges from lowland areas up to approximately 2,500 m elevation. In Bhutan, it has been documented along the road between Zhemgang and Trongsa at 1,700 m, flowering in October during the late monsoon season.
Ipomoea nil is a twining or scrambling annual herb with stems 1–3 m long, retrorsely hispid with spreading, tawny hairs. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to orbicular in outline, 5–15 cm long, typically three-lobed (occasionally entire or five-lobed), with a cordate base and hispid indumentum on both surfaces. The inflorescence consists of one to three flowers on axillary peduncles. The calyx is deeply divided into five lanceolate, densely hispid sepals with long, spreading basal hairs — a key diagnostic character. The corolla is funnelform, 3–5 cm long, typically blue to purple, occasionally red, pink, or white, with a paler tube. Stamens are five, included. The fruit is a globose, trilocular capsule 8–10 mm in diameter, enclosed by the persistent calyx, containing four to six seeds that are dark brown to black and finely pubescent.
Ipomoea nil holds exceptional cultural significance in East Asia, particularly in Japan, where it has been cultivated since the Nara period (eighth century) and subjected to intensive selection that has produced hundreds of ornamental cultivars (asagao) with extraordinary floral diversity in form, colour, and patterning. It has also become a model organism in molecular genetics for the study of transposable elements controlling flower pigmentation. Taxonomically, I. nil belongs to Ipomoea section Pharbitis and is distinguished from the closely related I. purpurea by its densely hispid, long-awned calyx lobes.

Author: (L.) Roth · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 16, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Austin: Convolvulaceae of the Southeastern United States (1978)

Convolvulaceae

Ipomoea purpurea

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Roth

Garh 07 250 ergebnis
India Garhwal Barron Chatti 2300m, June
Bhutan2015 563
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1550m, October

Description

Ipomoea purpurea, the common morning glory, is a neotropical species of Mexican and Central American origin now thoroughly naturalised worldwide; GBIF records exceed 36,000 occurrences spanning the Americas (US, MX, BR, EC, PE, AR, BO, CO), Europe, southern Africa, eastern Asia and Australia. In the Himalaya it persists as an escaped ornamental and weed of disturbed ground, hedgerows, field margins and roadsides. The plants noted at Barron Chatti in Garhwal at 2300 m in June and along the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at 1550 m in October illustrate its tolerance of a broad warm-temperate to subtropical elevation range and its long, monsoon-spanning flowering season.

It is an annual twining herb with slender, retrorsely hairy stems climbing by means of left-handed coiling. The leaves are alternate, long-petiolate, broadly ovate-cordate and usually entire, acuminate at the apex with a deep basal sinus. Flowers arise in axillary cymes of one to several; each has a hairy, lanceolate-lobed calyx and a showy funnelform corolla 4 to 6 cm across, varying from purple and violet-blue to pink, magenta and white, with a paler throat and five faint interplical bands. The five stamens are unequal and included; the superior ovary ripens into a globose, three-locular capsule releasing several glabrous, dark trigonous seeds.

The species is taxonomically straightforward within Ipomoea but horticulturally polymorphic, with numerous colour cultivars. Its self-compatible, bee-pollinated flowers and prolific hard-coated seed make it a successful colonist and, in warm regions, an agricultural weed. It is of no conservation concern; rather, its capacity to naturalise warrants monitoring in ruderal habitats.

Author: (L.) Roth · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 16, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Pakistan, A Monograph of the Convolvulaceae (Ipomoea)