Tag:

Bhutan

Flowers of Bhutan — 1326 plant species documented across the Bhutanese Himalaya, from dense broadleaf and conifer forests to alpine scrub and meadows. Bhutan’s largely intact wilderness shelters an exceptional diversity of orchids, rhododendrons, primulas and Himalayan poppies, many of them regional endemics. Each species page includes a botanical description, distribution, habitat and flowering time, with the original photograph and its recorded altitude and locality.

Salicaceae

Salix thomsoniana

by GP Jürgens

Andersson

Bh2008 587 G879
Bhutan Chele-La 3900m April
Bhutan2014 932
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May

Description

Salix thomsoniana is a dwarf, high-alpine willow of the family Salicaceae, endemic to the Himalaya. GBIF records, though few in number, are restricted to India, Nepal and Bhutan, reflecting both its genuine narrow range and the limited collecting of prostrate willows at extreme elevations. It is a plant of the upper alpine zone, growing among rocks, on stony slopes, moraine and the margins of alpine turf, typically between about 3,800 and 4,500 m. The collections illustrated from the Chele-La pass in western Bhutan at 3,900–4,000 m in April and May capture the species at the very start of its short growing season, flowering as the snow melts.

Like many high-mountain willows it is a low, decumbent to prostrate shrublet with creeping, often partly buried woody stems and short ascending shoots. The leaves are small, elliptic to obovate, with entire or finely toothed margins, glabrescent above and somewhat paler beneath. As in all Salix, the plant is dioecious, the flowers reduced and aggregated into short, erect catkins that appear with or just before the leaves; each minute flower is subtended by a hairy bract, the staminate flowers with two stamens and the pistillate flowers reduced to a single gynoecium with a nectary. The fruit is a small capsule releasing numerous minute, plumed seeds dispersed by wind.

The alpine willows form a taxonomically intricate group in which species are separated on subtle characters of leaf shape, indumentum, catkin structure and bract coloration, and hybridisation further complicates delimitation. As a cushion-forming dwarf shrub of the high Himalaya, S. thomsoniana contributes to soil stabilisation and provides early-season forage and pollen in an otherwise sparse environment. Its restricted range and dependence on the narrow alpine belt make such species potentially vulnerable to upward shifts in vegetation zones driven by warming.

Author: Andersson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 4, Flora of Nepal, Skvortsov: Willows of the USSR and adjacent regions

Lamiaceae

Salvia campanulata

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex Benth.

BhutanPG2011 767 01 01
Bhutan Dur-Tso, 3600m June
also included: Anemone rivularis DC.
BhutanPG2011 374
Bhutan Dur-Tso, 3600m June

Description

Salvia campanulata is a robust perennial sage of the Himalaya and adjacent China, with verified occurrences in Nepal, China, India, Bhutan and Myanmar. It grows on open grassy slopes, in forest clearings, scrub and along streamsides through the upper-temperate and subalpine zones, broadly between about 2500 and 3800 m. The plant illustrated from near Dur-Tso in Bhutan at around 3600 m in June, where it grows in company with Anemone rivularis, exemplifies its preference for moist, open subalpine grassland flowering early in the monsoon season.

The species arises from a stout rootstock and produces erect, quadrangular stems clothed, like the foliage, in soft hairs. The leaves are mostly basal and on the lower stem, large, broadly ovate to triangular-hastate with cordate bases and crenate-serrate margins, and long-petiolate. The inflorescence is an elongate terminal raceme of remote whorls (verticillasters), each of a few flowers. The calyx is bell-shaped, the feature noted in the epithet campanulata, and the corolla is comparatively large, yellow to greenish-yellow often marked with brown or purple, strongly two-lipped with a hooded upper lip enclosing the two functional stamens characteristic of the genus. The fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Salvia, the largest genus of Lamiaceae, is distinguished by its specialised lever-arm stamen mechanism that promotes precise pollen placement on visiting bees and other long-tongued insects. S. campanulata, described by Bentham from a Wallich collection, belongs to the Himalayan assemblage of large-leaved montane sages. It is widespread and locally common across its range and is not regarded as being of conservation concern.

Author: Wall. ex Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Lamiaceae

Salvia castanea

by GP Jürgens

Diels

BhutanPG2011 828 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3400m July

Description

Salvia castanea is a montane perennial distributed across the eastern Himalaya and adjoining south-western China, with georeferenced collections recorded from China, Bhutan, Nepal and India; some 202 occurrences are documented in GBIF. It favours open forest margins, scrub, alpine meadows and grassy slopes between roughly 2700 and 4000 m, the photographed plant having been gathered at Chele-La in Bhutan at about 3400 m in July, at the height of the monsoon flowering season. It thrives on humus-rich, well-drained soils in cool, moist subalpine conditions.

The plant forms an erect, woody-based perennial herb 30-60 cm tall from a stout rootstock, with quadrangular, sparsely pubescent stems. The basal and lower cauline leaves are long-petiolate, the lamina ovate to oblong-lanceolate, cordate or subcordate at the base, crenate-serrate, and rugose with impressed venation. The inflorescence is a lax raceme of distant 2-6-flowered verticillasters; flowers bear a campanulate calyx and a chestnut-brown to dull purplish-red corolla 2.5-3.5 cm long, with an arched, galeate upper lip and the characteristic Salvia lever mechanism of two stamens. The fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

The distinctive chestnut corolla colour, reflected in the epithet castanea, separates this species from most Himalayan sages, which tend toward blue or violet flowers. As a member of the large genus Salvia (Lamiaceae, subfamily Nepetoideae), it relies on long-tongued bees and occasionally birds for pollination via the staminal lever. Though not formally assessed as threatened, it is locally frequent within its restricted Sino-Himalayan range, where habitat continuity in subalpine meadows underpins its persistence.

Author: Diels · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, A Revision of Salvia (Lamiaceae) in Asia

Lamiaceae

Salvia nubicola

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex Sweet

Bhutan2012 15 scaled
Bhutan Paro, 2300m September

Description

Salvia nubicola is a robust herbaceous sage of the Himalaya and adjacent mountains, distributed from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Nepal, northern India and Bhutan into south-western China, with 372 GBIF occurrences that include naturalised or cultivated material in Europe, North America, Iran and New Zealand. It favours open slopes, forest margins, clearings, roadsides and disturbed ground in the temperate montane zone, broadly between 1800 and 3600 m. The illustrated plant was photographed at Paro in Bhutan at 2300 m in September, in the late-summer to autumn flowering season characteristic of the species at mid-elevations.

It is a stout perennial herb up to 1-1.5 m tall with quadrangular, glandular-hairy stems and a strong aromatic scent. The leaves are large, ovate-triangular to hastate with a cordate or sagittate base and crenate margin, long-petiolate and rugose. The flowers are arranged in widely spaced verticillasters forming an elongate terminal inflorescence, subtended by conspicuous bracts. The corolla is pale yellow, often blotched or veined with purple or brown on the lower lip, strongly two-lipped with a hooded galea-like upper lip; the two fertile stamens bear the characteristic lever-like connective of Salvia. The fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed in the persistent two-lipped calyx.

The staminal lever mechanism deposits pollen on visiting long-tongued bees and is a defining synapomorphy of Salvia; in S. nubicola the pale, dark-marked flowers attract bumblebees. The species belongs to a Himalayan group of large-leaved yellowish-flowered sages allied to S. glutinosa of Europe. Wide-ranging, weedy-tolerant and locally common, it is of least concern, and like many sages it has minor local use in traditional medicine and is grown as an ornamental in temperate gardens.

Author: Wall. ex Sweet · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Hedge: Labiatae of South-West Asia

Lamiaceae

Salvia plectranthoides

by GP Jürgens

Griff.

Bhutan2014 162
Bhutan Trashigang 2100m, May
Bhutan2014 163
Bhutan Trashigang 2100m, May

Description

Salvia plectranthoides Griff. is an Eastern Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan element distributed across southern China, Bhutan and northeastern India (gbif_countries: CN, BT, IN), with some 391 georeferenced occurrences recorded in GBIF. It occupies warm-temperate to subtropical montane habitats, favouring open forest margins, shrubby slopes, roadside banks and disturbed grassy ground between roughly 1500 and 2700 m. The photographed plant from Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 2100 m, flowering in May, typifies its preference for the mid-elevation broad-leaved forest belt of the eastern monsoon ranges, where humid summers and mild winters prevail.

It is an erect perennial herb arising from a woody rootstock, with quadrangular, often purple-tinged and retrorsely pubescent stems. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate with a cordate to truncate base, an acuminate apex and a crenate-serrate margin, the lamina rugose and pubescent on both surfaces. The inflorescence is a lax terminal panicle of verticillasters, each whorl 2–6-flowered. Flowers bear a campanulate, two-lipped calyx and a bilabiate corolla, pale violet to bluish-purple, the upper lip galeate and the lower lip three-lobed; the two fertile stamens display the characteristic Salvia lever mechanism. The fruit comprises four smooth ovoid nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Within the large genus Salvia (subfamily Nepetoideae), this species belongs to the East Asian assemblage and the specific epithet alludes to a superficial resemblance to Plectranthus. The staminal lever, a hallmark of the genus, facilitates precise pollen placement on visiting bees and contributes to floral isolation among congeners. It is not of conservation concern given its broad range and tolerance of disturbed habitats.

Author: Griff. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Lamiaceae), Flora of Bhutan, A Revision of Salvia (Lamiaceae) and allied genera

Lamiaceae

Salvia roborowskii

by G & P Jürgens

Maxim.

Sikkim2003 359 P502 ergebnis
India Sikkim Lachen 2840m, August

Description

Salvia roborowskii is a perennial herb distributed from the Himalayas across the Sino-Himalayan region to western China. Its range encompasses Nepal, northeast India (Sikkim), Bhutan, and China (Xizang, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu). The species inhabits montane forest clearings, grassy slopes, thicket margins, and alpine meadows at elevations of 2,400–4,200 m. It has been recorded from the Lachen Valley in Sikkim at 2,840 m, flowering profusely in August during the monsoon season, where it grows in open, herbaceous vegetation along stream margins and disturbed ground.
The plant produces erect, square stems 30–80 cm tall from a perennial rootstock, often branched in the upper portion. The stems are pubescent with short, retrorse hairs. The basal and lower cauline leaves are pinnately compound to pinnatisect, with 1–3 pairs of lateral lobes and a larger terminal lobe, the lobes ovate to oblong, irregularly crenate-serrate, sparsely pilose on both surfaces. The upper leaves are progressively reduced. The inflorescence is a series of verticillasters arranged in elongate, terminal, spike-like racemes. The calyx is bilabiate, glandular-pubescent. The corolla is blue to violet-purple, 8–12 mm long, bilabiate with an arched upper lip and a spreading, trilobed lower lip. The nutlets are ovoid, smooth, dark brown.
Salvia roborowskii was described by Maximowicz from material collected during Przewalski's expeditions in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. With over 400 occurrence records in GBIF, it is one of the more frequently collected high-altitude salvias in the region. The species is ecologically significant as a nectar source for montane bumblebees and other long-tongued pollinators. Its broad elevational range and tolerance of disturbed habitats suggest a degree of ecological resilience, though it remains dependent on the persistence of open montane grasslands and forest margins. Taxonomically, it is placed within Salvia subgenus Salvia and is allied to other pinnate-leaved species of the Sino-Himalayan region.

Author: Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 17, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Hedge: Salvia in Flora Iranica (1982)

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

Adoxaceae

Sambucus adnata

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Bhutan2015 322
Bhutan Trongsa 2100m, October
Bh09 202 P341
Bhutan Thimphu, 2500m June

Description

Sambucus adnata is a herbaceous elder distributed across the Himalaya and western to central China, occurring in Nepal, Bhutan, northern India and widely in China, with its very numerous GBIF records (over 1700) concentrated in this region; records from Germany, the United States, Austria, Japan and elsewhere reflect cultivation and herbarium accessions. It grows in moist forest clearings, on shrubby slopes, along stream banks, roadsides and at forest margins, generally between about 1600 and 3600 m. The photographed plants from Trongsa (2100 m, October) and Thimphu (2500 m, June) in Bhutan illustrate its range through the cool, humid mid-montane belt of the eastern Himalaya.

Unlike its woody relatives, S. adnata is a tall, robust perennial herb dying back to a thick, fleshy, creeping rhizome. The stout, erect, ridged stems bear large, opposite, imparipinnate leaves with several pairs of lanceolate, serrate leaflets, the lowest leaflets often adnate to the rachis or with adnate stipule-like outgrowths, a feature reflected in the epithet. The inflorescence is a large, flat-topped to convex compound cyme of numerous small flowers with a rotate, whitish to pinkish corolla and conspicuous reddish anthers or nectaries. The fruit is a small, globose, red drupe containing a few seed-like stones.

Sambucus, formerly placed in the Caprifoliaceae, is now referred with the genus Adoxa and Viburnum to the Adoxaceae on molecular and morphological grounds. S. adnata is distinctive among elders for its fully herbaceous, rhizomatous habit. It is widespread, common and weedy in disturbed montane habitats, and is of no conservation concern; the plant has a record of local medicinal use for bruises and swellings.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Sambucus (Adoxaceae) monograph

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)

Melastomataceae

Sarcopyramis nepalensis

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2012 676
Bhutan Galephu 900m, September

Description

Sarcopyramis nepalensis Wall. is a small, delicate herb of the Melastomataceae distributed through the eastern Himalaya and Southeast Asia. Its several hundred records range across Nepal, northeast India, Bhutan, southern China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The species is a denizen of cool, shaded, perpetually moist habitats, growing on damp humus-rich banks, mossy rocks, ravine sides and the forest floor of evergreen broad-leaved and subtropical forests. It generally occupies low to mid elevations, and the plant photographed near Galephu in southern Bhutan at 900 m in September, late in the monsoon when these herbs flower, is typical of its preference for humid, dripping microsites.

The plant is a small, succulent, low annual or short-lived perennial with weak, ascending, four-angled stems that often root at the lower nodes. The leaves are opposite, membranous, broadly ovate to elliptic, with the three to five arcuate, longitudinally curved veins characteristic of the family, the margins finely toothed and sometimes reddish beneath. The flowers are borne singly or in few-flowered terminal cymes; they have a distinctive urceolate, four-angled hypanthium with prominent crested or winged angles, four pink to pale rose-purple petals, and eight stamens with conspicuously appendaged connectives. The fruit is a small, four-lobed, cup-shaped capsule crowned by the persistent calyx.

Sarcopyramis is a small Asian genus closely allied to Bredia and Phyllagathis within tribe Sonerileae, and the species has at times been treated as a variable complex with several segregate taxa and varieties. Its dependence on humid, shaded forest microhabitats makes it a useful indicator of intact, moisture-rich forest understorey. While not currently regarded as threatened across its broad range, local populations are sensitive to deforestation and the drying of streamside and seepage habitats.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Renner et al.: Melastomataceae systematics