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.

Liliaceae

Cardiocrinum giganteum (var. yunnanense?)

by GP Jürgens

(Elwes) Stearn

Bh09 344 P559
Bhutan Jakar Wangdi 2500m, June
Bh09 346 G561
Bhutan Jakar Wangdi 2500m, June

Description

Cardiocrinum giganteum, the giant Himalayan lily, is a striking woodland geophyte of the eastern Himalaya and southwest China, with georeferenced records from China and naturalised or cultivated populations reported from Japan, Korea, Russia, Canada and Chile among its 173 occurrences. The variety yunnanense is the more eastern, often shorter-stemmed and darker-stemmed expression of the species. It thrives in cool, humid, deeply shaded broadleaved and conifer forest on humus-rich soils. The plant recorded at Jakar, Wangdi in Bhutan at 2500 m in June captures its early-summer flowering within the moist temperate forest belt it favours between about 1500 and 3000 m.

The plant grows from a large, scaled bulb that is monocarpic, flowering once after several years and then dying, leaving offset bulbils to continue the clone. The robust, hollow stem can reach two to three metres or more. The leaves are large, broadly ovate to cordate, glossy, net-veined and long-petiolate, arranged in a basal rosette and scattered up the stem. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme of up to twenty pendent, trumpet-shaped flowers; the perianth is white to creamy, streaked reddish-purple within the throat, and strongly fragrant. The fruit is a large erect, woody capsule splitting to release numerous flat, broadly winged seeds.

Cardiocrinum, segregated from Lilium chiefly by its cordate net-veined leaves and monocarpic habit, comprises a small genus of three species. The taxon is prized horticulturally, and its dependence on intact, humid forest understorey makes it sensitive to logging and habitat disturbance, though it remains locally frequent across its native range.

Author: (Elwes) Stearn · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, The Genus Lilium and allies (Liliaceae) monograph, Flowers of the Himalaya (Polunin & Stainton)

Fabaceae

Caryota urens

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2015 261
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October

Description

Caryota urens, the fishtail or jaggery palm, is a solitary tropical palm native to the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and South-East Asia, with around 5517 occurrence records spanning both its native range and many countries where it is widely cultivated. It grows in moist tropical and subtropical forest, secondary woodland, river valleys and around villages, predominantly in the lowland to lower-montane zone. The photographed plant from Zhemgang in southern Bhutan at 1000 m, recorded in October, sits at the upper-elevation edge of its warm, humid habitat.

It is a tall, single-stemmed palm with a stout, ringed grey trunk reaching well over ten metres. The leaves are very large, bipinnate—unusual among palms—with the ultimate segments wedge-shaped and jaggedly toothed at the apex, resembling a fish's tail and giving the common name. The plant is monocarpic and hapaxanthic: after years of vegetative growth it flowers once, producing a sequence of massive pendulous inflorescences from the upper nodes downward, bearing cream to purplish unisexual flowers. The fruit is a globose red to purplish-black berry containing irritant calcium-oxalate raphides, whence the epithet urens ("stinging").

Despite the source labelling it Fabaceae, Caryota urens belongs to the palm family, Arecaceae, subfamily Coryphoideae, tribe Caryoteae. It is of considerable economic value: the sugary sap tapped from the inflorescences yields jaggery, palm wine and vinegar, while the trunk furnishes sago-like starch and the leaf sheaths a strong fibre (kittul). Widely planted and broadly distributed, it is not considered threatened.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Arecaceae), Flora of Bhutan, Genera Palmarum (Dransfield et al.), Govaerts & Dransfield World Checklist of Palms

Ericaceae

Cassiope fastigiata

by GP Jürgens

(Wall.) D. Don

Sikkim2011 135
Sikkim Tanghu 4000m, June
Sikkim2011 137
Sikkim Tanghu 4000m, June

Description

Cassiope fastigiata (Wall.) D. Don is a dwarf evergreen shrublet of the high Himalaya, recorded by GBIF from Nepal, India, China, Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh across some 762 occurrences. It is a characteristic component of the alpine and subalpine zone, forming low cushions and mats on open rocky slopes, moraines, peaty banks and the margins of Rhododendron scrub, typically between 3300 and 4500 m. The plant photographed at Sikkim Tanghu around 4000 m in June, at the onset of the monsoon flowering season, exemplifies its preference for cool, humid, well-drained sites kept moist by snowmelt.

The species forms erect to ascending, much-branched stems clothed in four neat ranks of small, imbricate, scale-like leaves pressed close to the stem in the manner typical of the genus. Each leaf is ovate-oblong and keeled, with a conspicuous narrow membranous white margin and a deep dorsal furrow, giving the shoots a four-angled, whipcord appearance. The solitary nodding flowers arise from the upper leaf axils on slender, often reddish pedicels; the corolla is broadly campanulate, white, five-lobed and about 7-9 mm long, subtended by a reddish calyx. Stamens are ten, with awned anthers, and the fruit is a small globose loculicidal capsule.

Within Ericaceae, Cassiope is placed in the subfamily Cassiopoideae and is distinguished from related heaths by its four-ranked imbricate leaves and campanulate flowers. Cassiope fastigiata is among the most widespread Himalayan species of the genus and is locally abundant, so it is not regarded as threatened, though as a slow-growing alpine specialist it is sensitive to grazing pressure and warming-induced upward shifts of vegetation. It is of biogeographic interest as part of a cold-adapted, largely circum-Himalayan element.

Author: (Wall.) D. Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Stevens monograph of Ericaceae

Ericaceae

Cassiope selaginoides

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

BhutanPG2011 401
Bhutan Warrtlang-La, 4500m June

Description

Cassiope selaginoides is a dwarf, mat-forming alpine shrub of the Himalaya and Sino-Himalayan ranges, documented in GBIF (about 854 occurrences) from China, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar. It is characteristic of high alpine slopes, rocky ridges, moorland and the upper margins of dwarf-shrub heath, typically growing between 3500 and 4800 m, often forming low cushions and carpets among rocks and moss. The photographed population on the Warrtlang-La in Bhutan at 4500 m in June represents this exposed, high-alpine habitat, where it flowers soon after snowmelt at the start of the brief growing season.

It is a small, prostrate to ascending evergreen shrub with slender, wiry, much-branched stems densely clothed in tiny, imbricate, scale-like leaves arranged in four ranks, giving the shoots a clubmoss-like (selaginoid) appearance from which the epithet derives. The small, nodding flowers are solitary on slender, reddish pedicels arising from the upper leaf axils; each has a persistent calyx and a white, broadly campanulate, five-lobed corolla, sometimes tinged pink, with eight to ten included stamens bearing awned anthers. The fruit is a small, dehiscent, subglobose capsule containing numerous minute seeds.

Cassiope, a small genus of subfamily Cassiopoideae within the Ericaceae, comprises arctic and high-alpine cushion shrubs of which the Himalayan species form a distinctive radiation alongside C. fastigiata and C. wardii. Like other ericaceous heath plants it associates with ericoid mycorrhizal fungi, enabling survival on acidic, nutrient-poor alpine soils. Widespread across the high Himalaya and locally abundant, it is of Least Concern, contributing to the structure and stabilisation of alpine heath communities above the tree line.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Stevens revision of Cassiope and Ericaceae

Fagaceae

Castanopsis hystrix

by G & P Jürgens

A.DC.

Nepal 97 413 P797 ergebnis
Nepal Tashigang 2230m, May
Nepal 97 414 P800 ergebnis
Nepal Tashigang 2230m, May
Nepal 97 417 G804 ergebnis
Nepal Tashigang 2230m, May

Description

Castanopsis hystrix A.DC. is an evergreen forest tree of the Fagaceae, widespread through the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burmese region into southern China and Taiwan; native occurrences span India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and China, with introduced records in Japan and elsewhere, and over 1,100 georeferenced collections overall. It is a dominant or codominant canopy species of subtropical and lower-temperate broad-leaved evergreen forest, often forming mixed stands with Quercus, Lithocarpus, Schima and laurels on humid montane slopes. The photographed tree from Tashigang in eastern Nepal at about 2,230 m in May lies within the species' characteristic mid-elevation belt, typically between roughly 1,000 and 2,500 m.

It is a medium to large tree with a straight bole and greyish, longitudinally fissured bark. The leaves are alternate, simple, leathery, lanceolate to oblong, entire or finely toothed toward the apex, glossy above and often coppery-tomentose beneath. The plant is monoecious: erect catkin-like spikes bear the small unisexual flowers, the staminate above and pistillate below. The defining feature is the densely spiny cupule (whence the epithet hystrix, 'porcupine'), an indehiscent or tardily splitting involucre clothed in branched echinate spines and enclosing a single ovoid, brown nut.

Castanopsis is a large Asian genus centred on the Sino-Himalayan and Malesian regions, and C. hystrix is among its most economically important members, valued for durable timber and as a keystone of montane evergreen forest ecosystems. The acorns are an important wildlife food. Although the species remains widespread and is not globally threatened, primary stands have been depleted by logging and shifting cultivation, and it is increasingly used in reforestation.

Author: A.DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 4, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Soepadmo: Fagaceae in Flora Malesiana (1972)

Fagaceae

Castanopsis indica

by GP Jürgens

(Roxb. ex Lindl.) A.DC.

Bhutan2015 191
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1400m, October
Bhutan2015 192
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1400m, October
Bhutan2015 649 scaled
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1400m, October

Description

Castanopsis indica is a large evergreen tree of the subtropical and lower temperate forests of the Himalaya and Southeast Asia, abundantly recorded with around 1680 GBIF occurrences across India, China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The photographed tree was found along the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at 1400 m in October. The species is a dominant or co-dominant canopy element of mid-elevation broad-leaved forest, typically between 800 and 2000 m, often forming Castanopsis-Schima associations on humid, well-drained hill slopes.

It is a stout tree with a broad crown and greyish, somewhat fissured bark. The leaves are alternate, leathery, oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, with a coarsely serrate margin bearing spinose-tipped teeth, glabrous and dark green above. Like other chestnut relatives the flowers are unisexual, the males borne in erect catkin-like spikes and the females clustered at their base, producing a strong scent at anthesis. The fruit is a hard nut wholly enclosed in a globose cupule densely armed with branched, spiny processes; the cupules split irregularly to release the edible nuts.

The genus Castanopsis (chinquapins) belongs to the Fagaceae and is a keystone group in Asian evergreen oak forests. The nutritious nuts are eaten locally and dispersed by rodents and birds, while the timber is valued for construction and the trees provide important habitat structure. Although the species is widespread and not globally threatened, the Castanopsis-dominated forests it characterises are under pressure from logging, fuelwood collection and agricultural conversion.

Author: (Roxb. ex Lindl.) A.DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Camus – Les Chenes: Monographie du genre Castanopsis

Fagaceae

Castanopsis tribuloides

by GP Jürgens

A.DC.

Bhutan2014 87
Bhutan Trashigang 1400m, May
Bhutan2014 167
Bhutan Trashigang 1400m, May
Bhutan2014 165
Bhutan Trashigang 1400m, May

Description

Castanopsis tribuloides is an evergreen chinquapin widely distributed across the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burma into southern China and Japan, recorded from Nepal, Bhutan, north-eastern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina and the Sino-Japanese region. GBIF aggregates some 766 occurrences, concentrated in the montane forests of the eastern Himalaya and South-East Asia. It is a canopy or sub-canopy tree of subtropical and warm-temperate evergreen broad-leaved forest, often in mixed oak-laurel associations on hill slopes, typically between about 1000 and 2500 m. The tree photographed near Trashigang in eastern Bhutan (1400 m, May) reflects its place in the moist mid-elevation forests of the eastern Himalayan belt, flowering in the pre-monsoon season.

The species is a medium-sized tree with greyish bark and slender twigs. The leaves are simple, alternate, coriaceous, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, entire or finely serrate toward the apex, glabrous and glossy above and often thinly scaly or coppery beneath when young. The flowers are unisexual, borne in erect catkin-like spikes, the staminate inflorescences slender and the pistillate flowers in few-flowered clusters. The diagnostic fruit is a small nut enclosed in a globose cupule densely covered with slender, spreading, often branched spines, recalling a Tribulus burr and giving the epithet; the spiny involucres are borne in dense infructescences and dehisce to release the nut.

Castanopsis is a large genus of Asian Fagaceae distinguished from Castanea and Lithocarpus by its evergreen habit and persistently spiny cupules. C. tribuloides, described by Alphonse de Candolle, is variable in leaf form and cupule spininess, and is closely allied to other Himalayan chinquapins with which it can intergrade. As a widespread, often common forest dominant it is not threatened, while being ecologically valuable as wildlife mast and locally used for timber and fuelwood.

Author: A.DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Thailand, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, monograph of Asian Fagaceae (Camus)

Papaveraceae

Cathcartia villosa

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

BhutanPG2011 681 01 01
Bhutan Luksor, 3000m July
Bh09 293 G482
Bhutan Tongsa 2400m, June
Sikkim2003 152 G203
Sikkim Dzongri 4000m 08.2003

Description

Cathcartia villosa is an eastern Himalayan poppywort distributed through India, Nepal, Bhutan and southern Tibet (China), the GBIF dataset holding about 110 records (codes for Canada and Great Britain reflect cultivated and herbarium material). It grows in cool, humid montane and subalpine settings: shaded forest margins, mossy rocks, ravine sides and damp banks, broadly between about 2400 and 4000 m. The collections illustrated span this gradient, from Tongsa in Bhutan at around 2400 m and Luksor at 3000 m to Dzongri in Sikkim near 4000 m, recorded between June and August.

It is a softly villous perennial herb clothed throughout in long, spreading yellowish-brown hairs. The leaves are mostly basal, long-petiolate, the blade rounded and palmately lobed to crenate, the whole densely hairy and yielding a coloured latex when broken, as is typical of the poppy family. One or a few nodding, golden-yellow flowers are borne on slender hairy scapes; each has two caducous sepals, four broad spreading petals, numerous stamens and a superior ovary. The fruit is an elongate, hairy capsule dehiscing by valves to shed many small seeds.

Long treated within Meconopsis, this plant is now widely referred to the segregate genus Cathcartia, a Sino-Himalayan group of yellow-flowered, villous poppyworts distinguished from true Meconopsis by molecular and morphological evidence; older sources and the source URL still use the name Meconopsis villosa. It is valued in temperate gardens as an elegant woodland perennial. The species is locally frequent across its range and is not formally assessed as threatened, but it depends on cool, moist forest-edge habitats susceptible to deforestation and to climatic warming.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Grey-Wilson The Genus Meconopsis

Rubiaceae

Catunaregam longispina

by GP Jürgens

(Link) Tirveng.

Nepal 97 542 G1061
Nepal Dhoban 740m April

Description

Catunaregam longispina is a spiny shrub or small tree of tropical and subtropical Asia, distributed from India and Nepal through Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. GBIF records about 165 occurrences across this range, concentrated in the Indian subcontinent and mainland South-East Asia. It is a plant of dry deciduous and mixed forest, thorn scrub, open hillsides and disturbed ground at low elevations, typically in the warm subtropical foothill and plains zone. The population imaged at Dhoban in Nepal (740 m, April) is characteristic of its habitat in the warm, seasonally dry hill country of the lower Himalayan foreland, flowering in spring before the monsoon.

The plant is a much-branched, often armed shrub bearing stout, straight, axillary thorns from which the epithet derives. The leaves are opposite or fascicled on short shoots, obovate to elliptic, entire, often clustered at the nodes, with interpetiolar stipules. The flowers are solitary or few at the shoot tips, fragrant, with a campanulate calyx and a salver- to funnel-shaped corolla that opens white or cream and frequently ages to yellow, the five lobes spreading and contorted in bud. Five stamens are inserted in the corolla throat and the ovary is inferior. The fruit is a leathery to woody, globose berry crowned by the persistent calyx and containing numerous seeds embedded in pulp.

Catunaregam (tribe Gardenieae) was segregated from the broadly defined Randia, and this species, transferred by Tirvengadum, has circulated under several synonyms in the Randia/Xeromphis complex; care is needed in distinguishing it from related thorny gardenioid shrubs. As a widespread and adaptable species of secondary and dry forest it is not of conservation concern, and its fruit and bark have local ethnobotanical uses, including as a fish poison and in folk medicine.

Author: (Link) Tirveng. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of British India, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Thailand, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, revision of Catunaregam and allied Gardenieae (Tirvengadum)

Zingiberacaea

Cautleya gracilis

by GP Jürgens

(Sm.) Dandy

Sikkim2004 336 P598
Sikkim/India Choka 3000m May
Garh 07 92 ergebnis
India Garhwal Trijugi Narayan 2500m, June
Sikkim 2006 210 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Samadan 2300m, May

Description

Cautleya gracilis is a slender ginger widely distributed through the Sino-Himalayan region, documented by GBIF from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and adjacent Southeast Asia, with well over 650 occurrences making it the best-recorded species of its genus. It is frequently epiphytic or lithophytic, growing on mossy tree trunks, dripping cliffs and humid bank ledges in temperate broadleaved and mixed forest. The illustrated gatherings span Sikkim at Choka around 3000 m, Garhwal near Trijugi Narayan at 2500 m, and West Bengal at Samadan near 2300 m, flowering from May to June; the species generally favours the 1500-3000 m belt under monsoon humidity.

The plant grows from a short, fibrous-rooted rhizome producing a graceful leafy shoot to about 30-60 cm. The distichous leaves are lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed to a sheathing base, glabrous and often glaucous beneath. The inflorescence is a terminal, lax spike of few to several yellow flowers subtended by green or reddish bracts; each flower bears a slender corolla tube, a hooded dorsal lobe, prominent lateral staminodes and a bilobed labellum, with a single fertile stamen typical of the family. The fruit is a capsule splitting to reveal arillate seeds.

Cautleya is a small genus of perhaps two to three species centred on the Himalaya and southern China, closely allied to Roscoea but distinguished by its often epiphytic habit and capsular fruit. The yellow flowers are visited by long-tongued bees and the seeds dispersed when capsules open. Widespread and locally common, C. gracilis is of least concern, though epiphytic populations depend on intact, humid forest canopies vulnerable to logging and desiccation.

Author: (Sm.) Dandy · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Zingiberaceae of the Indian Subcontinent (Sabu)