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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.

Polygonaceae

Aconogonum campanulatum 

by GP Jürgens

(Hook.f.) H.Hara

Sikkim2003 70 P95
Sikkim Choka 2900m, August

Description

Aconogonum campanulatum, treated by GBIF as a synonym of the accepted Aconogonon campanulatum, is a Sino-Himalayan perennial herb distributed from Nepal and northern India through Sikkim and Bhutan into Myanmar and south-western China. Its 372 GBIF records lie mostly within this native range, with scattered European, North and South American and New Zealand points reflecting cultivated and herbarium material. It grows in subalpine and alpine meadows, forest clearings, shrubberies and along streamsides and banks, commonly between about 2700 and 4000 m. The plant photographed at Choka in Sikkim at 2900 m in August captures it flowering in moist, herb-rich montane vegetation during the monsoon.

It is a robust, branching perennial arising from a woody rootstock, with erect leafy stems. The leaves are alternate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, often somewhat cordate to rounded at the base and acuminate at the apex, frequently white-tomentose beneath, with membranous sheathing ochreae at the nodes. The flowers are borne in lax, branched, paniculate inflorescences; each has a five-parted, campanulate, white to pinkish perianth (the source of the epithet), with eight stamens and a trifid style. The fruit is a small, trigonous, shining brown nut.

The species belongs to Aconogonon (often spelled Aconogonum), a segregate of the broadly defined Polygonum embracing the alpine knotweeds, and the accepted name is Aconogonon campanulatum. Its woody rootstock and tall leafy habit suit the tall-herb communities of moist Himalayan slopes. Widely distributed and locally abundant, it is of no conservation concern and forms a conspicuous element of subalpine meadow vegetation.

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

Ranunculaceae

Actaea cimicifuga

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 41
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September
Bhutan2012 42
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September

Description

Actaea cimicifuga, the type of the long-segregated genus Cimicifuga and now treated within Actaea, is a temperate Eurasian herb with a vast range spanning Russia, China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Nepal, India, Bhutan and parts of central and eastern Europe, reflected in some 2565 georeferenced records. It grows in cool montane and subalpine woodland, forest margins, scrub and tall-herb meadows, in the Himalaya generally between about 2500 and 3800 m. The recorded plant from Shele-La in Bhutan at 3600 m, flowering in September, illustrates its preference for moist, shaded high-montane situations where it blooms late in the season.

It is a tall, erect perennial from a stout woody rhizome, reaching well over a metre. The leaves are large and ternately to bipinnately compound, with ovate, sharply toothed and lobed leaflets. The inflorescence is an elongate, branched panicle of slender racemes bearing many small, short-stalked flowers; the petaloid sepals fall early, the petals are reduced and staminode-like, and the numerous white stamens give the spikes a feathery aspect. The fruit is a cluster of dry, dehiscent, several-seeded follicles, distinguishing it from the berry-fruited typical species of Actaea.

The follicular fruit and tall paniculate habit underlie the historic recognition of Cimicifuga, now subsumed into Actaea on molecular grounds, making the species a focus of generic-circumscription debate. The plant has a strong, unpleasant odour repellent to insects, the source of the name "bugbane," and it has a long history of medicinal use. Widespread and locally common, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Compton's revision of Cimicifuga and Actaea

Ranunculaceae

Actaea elata

by GP Jürgens

Prantl

Sikkim2003 477 P662
Sikkim Lachung Valley 3300m, August

Description

Actaea elata Prantl is a tall woodland perennial of cool-temperate forests. The GBIF record (CN, IN and several extralimital codes including US, CA, RU, CO and ZZ, totalling 844 occurrences) reflects a mixture of Asian native material and considerable confusion with the North American A. elata (Nutt.) Prantl, a name applied on both continents; in the Himalayan context the plant occupies shaded, humus-rich Abies–Betula and mixed broad-leaved forest, streamsides and tall-herb communities. The illustrated specimen from the Lachung Valley in northern Sikkim at 3300 m, in August, sits squarely within this moist montane forest zone, flowering and fruiting during the late monsoon.

The species grows from a stout rhizome, producing erect stems to well over a metre. The leaves are large, alternate and 2–3-ternately compound, the ultimate leaflets ovate, acuminate and sharply serrate to incised. Flowers are borne in elongate terminal and axillary racemes; they are small, white and apetalous in effect, the petaloid sepals soon caducous and the conspicuous part being the numerous slender white stamens, giving a fluffy aspect typical of baneberries. The pistils mature into several-seeded follicles or, in the strict baneberry sense, fleshy berries, the dispersal unit varying with the taxonomic circumscription applied.

Actaea, here treated to include the segregate Cimicifuga, belongs to subfamily Ranunculoideae; the inclusion of Cimicifuga within Actaea is supported by molecular phylogenetics. As in many Ranunculaceae the plants contain bioactive triterpene glycosides, conferring toxicity and underpinning medicinal use. The taxon is widespread and not threatened, though the transcontinental nomenclatural overlap means GBIF distributional data require critical evaluation.

Author: Prantl · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Ranunculaceae), Flora of Bhutan, Compton & Culham monograph of Actaea s.l. (incl. Cimicifuga)

Actinidiaceae

Actinidia callosa

by GP Jürgens

Lindl.

Bh09 44 P81
Bhutan Paro 2500m, June

Description

Actinidia callosa Lindl. is a woody climber of the Actinidiaceae, the kiwifruit family, distributed widely through the Himalaya and East and Southeast Asia. GBIF (about 3,400 occurrences) records it from China, Taiwan, Nepal, India, Japan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bhutan and Indonesia, where it scrambles through montane broad-leaved and mixed forest, along forest margins, thickets and stream banks. It occupies a broad temperate to warm-temperate belt; the plant photographed at Paro in Bhutan at 2,500 m in June illustrates its flowering in mid-elevation forest, where it climbs over shrubs and trees for support.

The plant is a deciduous, twining liana with terete, lenticellate stems and a pith that is typically lamellate (chambered) or solid, a diagnostic character within the genus. Leaves are alternate, long-petiolate, ovate to elliptic, with finely serrate margins bearing callose-tipped teeth, the feature giving the epithet "callosa"; the lower surface is often glabrous to sparsely hairy with conspicuous venation. The flowers are borne in axillary cymes, are usually functionally unisexual (the plants more or less dioecious), and have white to greenish-white petals; the numerous stamens bear dark anthers, and the superior ovary develops many styles. The fruit is a many-seeded berry, ovoid to oblong, greenish to brownish and spotted, edible though far smaller than the cultivated kiwifruit.

Actinidia callosa is a polymorphic species with several recognised varieties differing in leaf indumentum, dentition and fruit characters, and it belongs to the same genus as the commercial kiwifruit (A. deliciosa and A. chinensis), making the wild Himalayan members of interest as genetic resources. Ecologically it is a characteristic forest liana, its berries dispersed by birds and mammals, and it contributes to the structural complexity of mid-montane Asian forests.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 12, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Li, Li & Soejarto: Actinidiaceae in Flora of China

Campanulaceae

Adenophora khasiana

by GP Jürgens

(Hook. f. & Thomson) Collett & Hemsl.

Bhutan2012 517
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September
Bhutan2012 518
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September

Description

Adenophora khasiana is a Sino-Himalayan ladybell distributed from the eastern Himalaya through northeastern India (including the Khasi Hills, source of the epithet), Bhutan and Myanmar into southern China, with scattered records elsewhere reflecting herbarium and cultivated material; GBIF documents some 327 occurrences. It is a plant of the temperate montane belt, occurring on grassy banks, forest margins, scrub and open rocky slopes, as recorded near Wangdi in Bhutan at 2700 m. Flowering in late summer and autumn (September), it favours well-drained, sunny to lightly shaded sites within the broadleaved and mixed forest zone.

It is an erect perennial herb arising from a thickened, fleshy taproot, the stems simple or sparingly branched and exuding milky latex when broken, as is characteristic of the family. The leaves are alternate, sessile or short-petiolate, ovate to lanceolate and toothed along the margin. The flowers are borne in a lax terminal panicle or raceme; the corolla is campanulate to broadly funnel-shaped and blue to pale violet, with five short lobes. Diagnostic for the genus is the tubular nectary disc surrounding the base of the style, and the elongate style that is usually exserted beyond the corolla. The fruit is a capsule dehiscing by basal pores to shed numerous small seeds.

The species was transferred to Adenophora by Collett & Hemsley from a basionym of Hooker f. & Thomson. Adenophora is distinguished from the closely related Campanula primarily by its conspicuous cylindrical nectariferous disc at the base of the style, a key character in the taxonomy of the Campanulaceae. The protandrous, nectar-rich flowers attract bees and other long-tongued insects. The fleshy roots of several Adenophora species are used in East Asian herbal medicine. Widespread and locally common, A. khasiana is not considered threatened.

Author: (Hook. f. & Thomson) Collett & Hemsl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Hong's monograph of the genus Adenophora (Campanulaceae)

Asteraceae

Adenostemma lavenia

by GP Jürgens

(L.) Kuntze

Bhutan2015 588
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1900m, October
Bhutan2015 589
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1900m, October

Description

Adenostemma lavenia is a near-pantropical composite of remarkably wide distribution, with GBIF documenting some 4700 occurrences across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, Africa and the Pacific, including China, Japan, India, Nepal, Australia, the Philippines, Brazil and many other countries. It is a weed of moist, shaded habitats, favouring streambanks, wet forest margins, ditches and damp disturbed ground, mostly at low to mid elevations. The photographed plant is from the Mo-Chu valley in Bhutan at 1900 m in October, growing in humid riparian thicket within subtropical hill forest.

The species is an erect to ascending annual or short-lived perennial herb with branched, ridged, sparsely pubescent stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to deltoid, coarsely crenate-serrate, with a cuneate to truncate base narrowing to a winged petiole. The capitula are small, discoid and white, lacking ray florets, arranged in lax terminal corymbose cymes; each holds few tubular florets within a two-seriate involucre of subequal phyllaries. The most diagnostic feature is the cypsela, which is glandular-tuberculate and crowned by a pappus reduced to a few short, stout, gland-tipped (clavate) bristles that act as a clinging burr.

Adenostemma is a small genus of the tribe Eupatorieae, and A. lavenia is the type and most cosmopolitan species, its sticky fruits readily dispersed on animals and clothing, explaining its global spread. Highly variable and broadly circumscribed, it has long been used in folk medicine. It is abundant and weedy, hence of no conservation concern.

Author: (L.) Kuntze · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Revision of Adenostemma (Eupatorieae)

Ranunculaceae

Adonis davidii

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Bhutan2014 981
Bhutan2014 521
Bhutan2014 520
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May
Bh2008 15 P25
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Bh2008 304 G469
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Bh2008 305 G471
Bhutan Ura 3400m, April

Description

Adonis davidii is a perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and southwestern China, with GBIF records (462 occurrences) concentrated in China and Bhutan. It grows in cool, shaded habitats: coniferous and mixed forest understorey, forest margins, shrubberies and damp meadows, generally between 2500 and 4000 m. The Bhutanese gatherings figured here span this range, from Thimphu-Chu at 2800 m and Ura at 3400 m in April to Chele-La at 4000 m in May, illustrating its early-spring to early-summer flowering as snow retreats and its preference for moist, humus-rich montane soils in partial shade.

The plant arises from a short, thickened rhizome bearing fibrous roots, producing erect or ascending stems 15-50 cm tall that are usually simple or sparingly branched. The leaves are alternate, sessile or shortly petiolate, and several times ternately or pinnately dissected into narrow, linear-lanceolate ultimate segments, giving a finely divided, fern-like aspect. The solitary terminal flowers are white, often tinged blue, lilac or pink, with numerous spreading petaloid sepals (the true perianth) surrounding a central cluster of yellow stamens and free carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of numerous obovoid, wrinkled achenes, each tipped by a short persistent style.

Adonis (Ranunculaceae) is a chiefly Eurasian genus distinguished by its many free achenes and showy perianth; like many congeners A. davidii contains cardioactive compounds and should be regarded as toxic. Within the genus it belongs to the white-flowered perennial assemblage centred on China. It is not currently considered threatened, being locally frequent across an extensive forest range, though it depends on intact montane forest cover and is therefore sensitive to logging and habitat fragmentation.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Monograph of the Genus Adonis (Ranunculaceae)

Ranunculaceae

Adonis nepalensis

by GP Jürgens

Simonov.

Sikkim2004 168 P284
Sikkim/India Singalila 4200m May

Description

Adonis nepalensis is an alpine perennial herb of the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, India and Bhutan (the additional scattered GBIF records from Hungary and Morocco almost certainly representing cultivated or misattributed material), with a small total of 28 occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of high open habitats, growing in alpine meadows, grassy and rocky slopes and the margins of dwarf scrub near and above the treeline. The photographed plant was collected on the Singalila ridge on the Sikkim/India border at about 4200 m in May, a high-altitude spring-flowering station typical of the species, which blooms soon after snowmelt.

The plant grows from a short, stout rootstock and produces erect, leafy stems. The leaves are alternate and finely dissected, repeatedly divided into narrow, linear ultimate segments, giving them a feathery aspect characteristic of the genus. The flowers are solitary and terminal, fairly large and showy, with numerous spreading petals that are yellow (the usual colour in the Himalayan species), subtended by a green, dissected involucre of leaf-like bracts; the numerous stamens and free carpels are borne on a slightly elongate receptacle. The fruit is a head of small, dry, one-seeded achenes.

Adonis belongs to the Ranunculaceae and, like many genera of the family, contains cardiac glycosides and other toxic compounds. Adonis nepalensis is the principal Himalayan representative, distinguished by its alpine habit and yellow flowers, and is a relatively narrow-ranged montane species. Its high-elevation, snowmelt-dependent populations make it of biogeographic interest as part of the specialised Himalayan alpine flora and potentially sensitive to warming and to the disturbance of fragile alpine turf.

Author: Simonov. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Ranunculaceae of the Himalaya

Acanthaceae

Aechmanthera gossypina

by GP Jürgens

(Wall.) Nees

Bhutan2012 954
Bhutan2012 955

Description

Aechmanthera gossypina is a robust Himalayan acanth distributed from south-western China through northern India, Nepal and Bhutan. GBIF records some 34 occurrences across China, India, Nepal and Bhutan. Under current taxonomy the name is treated as a synonym, with Aechmanthera gossypina regarded as the accepted name for the taxon; many authors further place Aechmanthera within an expanded Strobilanthes. The plant occupies warm-temperate to subtropical hill slopes, forest margins, shrubberies and open rocky banks of the mid-Himalaya, typically between about 1000 and 2500 m, flowering in the cooler months on disturbed and grassy ground.

The plant is a coarse, woolly perennial herb or soft shrub with erect, much-branched stems densely clothed, like the foliage, in a cottony grey tomentum—the indumentum that gives the epithet gossypina, meaning cotton-like. The leaves are opposite, ovate to elliptic, acuminate, with crenate to serrate margins and a softly hairy surface. The flowers are borne in elongate terminal and axillary spike-like thyrses subtended by leafy bracts; the corolla is funnel-shaped, pale violet to bluish, with a slightly oblique five-lobed limb. The fruit is a club-shaped, explosively dehiscent capsule, the seeds borne on hooked retinacula characteristic of the family.

Aechmanthera is a small Sino-Himalayan genus historically segregated from Strobilanthes on details of the inflorescence and seed, but molecular and morphological studies increasingly subsume it within that large, taxonomically intricate genus noted for mass-flowering (plietesial) cycles. Whether A. gossypina shares the gregarious, semelparous flowering of many Strobilanthes remains imperfectly documented. The species is reasonably widespread across the central Himalaya and is not regarded as of conservation concern.

Author: (Wall.) Nees · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, An Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, A Revision of the Genus Strobilanthes (Acanthaceae)

Orobanchaceae

Aeginetia indica

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 456
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September
Nepal 95 63 P106 ergebnis
Nepal below Barphak 1400m October

Description

Aeginetia indica is a widespread holoparasitic herb of tropical and subtropical Asia, recorded from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and across South and Southeast Asia including India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, the Malesian region and beyond; with about 3514 GBIF records it is by far the most frequently collected species in this group. It is a root parasite of grasses and other monocots, occurring in moist forest, grassland, scrub, plantations and field margins from the lowlands up into the lower hills, generally below about 2500 m. The plants illustrated, from Wangdi in Bhutan at around 2500 m in September and below Barphak in Nepal at about 1400 m in October, span this elevational range.

Lacking chlorophyll, the plant is reduced to fleshy, scale-like leaves on a very short underground stem attached to the host roots. The conspicuous part is the flower, borne singly atop a long, stout, purplish or yellowish scape; it is a large, tubular, somewhat curved corolla coloured deep purple to magenta with a paler throat, the five lobes short and the mouth oblique, subtended by a boat-shaped spathe-like calyx. There are four stamens and a superior ovary that ripens into a many-seeded capsule shedding the dust-like seeds characteristic of parasitic plants.

Now placed in the broadened Orobanchaceae following the merger of the old Scrophulariaceae-derived parasites, Aeginetia is an Asian genus of obligate root parasites, and A. indica is notable as a parasite of sugarcane and other grasses, where it can be a minor agricultural pest. Its enormous seed output and broad host and geographic range make it ecologically successful and of no conservation concern. The species is also used in traditional medicine across parts of its range.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Nickrent Parasitic Plant Genera of the World