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.

Zingiberacaea

Cautleya spicata

by GP Jürgens

(Sm.) Baker

Sikkim2003 56 P75
Sikkim above Yoksam 2650m 08.2003

Description

Cautleya spicata is a robust Himalayan ginger distributed through India, Nepal, China and Bhutan, with GBIF recording some 226 occurrences along the southern slopes of the range and into Myanmar. It grows in moist, shaded temperate forest, on humus-rich banks, mossy boulders and stream gullies, occasionally epiphytic but more often terrestrial in deep leaf litter. The photographed plant was found in Sikkim above Yoksam at about 2650 m in August, at the height of the monsoon flowering season; the species characteristically occupies the cool, humid 1800-3000 m belt of the eastern and central Himalaya.

The plant arises from a stout, horizontal rhizome to form leafy shoots reaching about 60-100 cm, taller and more substantial than its slender relative C. gracilis. The distichous leaves are oblong-lanceolate, acuminate and sheathing at the base, green above and often paler beneath. The inflorescence is an erect terminal spike with conspicuous, persistent red or maroon bracts subtending the bright yellow flowers; each flower has a slender corolla tube, a hooded dorsal segment, petaloid lateral staminodes, a deflexed bilobed labellum, and a single fertile stamen. The fruit is a capsule bearing arillate seeds.

Cautleya spicata is closely related to C. gracilis within a small Himalayan genus allied to Roscoea, distinguished by its larger stature, conspicuous coloured bracts and predominantly terrestrial habit. The contrasting red bracts and yellow flowers signal to long-tongued bee pollinators. It is widely cultivated as a hardy ornamental ginger, contributing extralimital GBIF records. Locally frequent and not threatened, it nonetheless depends on intact, humid montane forest for its core populations.

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

Orchideaceae

Cephalanthera damasonium

by GP Jürgens

Druce

Bh09 399 G632
Bhutan Punaka, 1400m June
Nepal 99 29 ergebnis
West-Nepal Chere 2850m June

Description

Cephalanthera damasonium, the white helleborine, is a terrestrial orchid with a vast distribution spanning Europe, western Asia, and the Himalayas. While primarily a European species — GBIF records over 116,000 occurrences, predominantly from France, Germany, Switzerland, and Britain — it extends eastward through Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus into the western and central Himalayas, reaching Bhutan and western Nepal. In the Himalayas, it grows in broadleaved and pine forests on calcareous or base-rich soils at 1,200–3,000 m elevation.

The plant is a rhizomatous, mycoheterotrophic perennial, partially dependent on soil fungi (Cephalanthera species form associations with ectomycorrhizal fungi, particularly Thelephoraceae). Stems are erect, 15–50 cm tall, bearing 3–6 ovate to lanceolate, plicate leaves that decrease in size upward. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme of 3–12 flowers. Flowers are 15–20 mm long, creamy white to ivory, and remain partially closed (a feature related to their autogamous pollination strategy). The lip is short, with a yellowish-orange blotch on the inner surface bearing several raised ridges. Flowering in the Himalayas occurs from May to July.

The Himalayan populations of C. damasonium represent the eastern limit of this predominantly Eurasian species. Their occurrence in Bhutan is biogeographically noteworthy, extending the species' known range far beyond its European centre of diversity.

Author: Druce · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Delforge: Orchids of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East (2006)

Orchideaceae

Cephalanthera longifolia

by GP Jürgens

(L.) Fritsch

Bhutan2014 398
Bhutan Jakar 2400m, May
Bh2008 556 P840
Bhutan Paro 1950m April

Description

Cephalanthera longifolia (L.) Fritsch is a terrestrial orchid with one of the widest ranges in its genus, extending from western Europe and North Africa across temperate Asia to the Himalaya. GBIF records it from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Britain, Greece, China and many other countries, with over 141000 occurrences reflecting its abundance in the western part of its range. It grows in dappled shade in deciduous and coniferous woodland, scrub and grassy banks, often on calcareous soils, from near sea level to about 2500 m. In the eastern Himalaya it reaches the montane forests of Bhutan, recorded at Jakar around 2400 m in May and at Paro near 1950 m in April.

The plant arises from a short rhizome with fleshy roots and produces an erect, leafy stem. The leaves are numerous, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, sheathing at the base, longer than the internodes and noticeably keeled. The lax terminal raceme bears several pure white flowers that scarcely open, remaining narrowly campanulate; the sepals and petals are lanceolate and acute, and the labellum is shorter, divided into a basal hypochile with a small spur-like sac and an apical epichile marked with orange-yellow ridges that guide pollinators. The ovary is twisted and glabrous, ripening into an erect capsule.

Cephalanthera belongs to subtribe Limodorinae of tribe Neottieae and, like its relatives, is partially mycoheterotrophic, drawing carbon from ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with forest trees. Cephalanthera longifolia is globally secure given its enormous range, but it is locally scarce and legally protected in parts of northern Europe where suitable woodland is fragmented. Its trans-Palaearctic distribution makes it a notable example of a widespread orchid reaching its eastern limit in the Himalayan forests.

Author: (L.) Fritsch · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora Europaea, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Delforge monograph of Orchids of Europe

Plumbaginaceae

Ceratostigma griffithii

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2012 315
Bhutan Paro-Chu, 2400m September
Bhutan2012 316
Bhutan Paro-Chu, 2400m September

Description

Ceratostigma griffithii is a shrub of the dry inner valleys of the eastern Himalaya and southwestern China, recorded from China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar, with cultivated and naturalised occurrences in the United States, Canada, Spain and Korea; GBIF holds about 163 georeferenced records. It grows on dry, sunny, stony slopes, rocky banks, scrub and the margins of cultivation in the rain-shadowed montane valleys, tolerating drought and strong insolation. The photographed plant from the Paro Chu valley in Bhutan at 2400 m in September is characteristic of these semi-arid inner-Himalayan habitats, where it flowers in late summer and autumn on open hillsides.

It is a low, much-branched, semi-evergreen shrub up to about 1 m, with stiff, reddish-tinged twiggy branches that turn bronze-red in autumn. The leaves are small, alternate, obovate to spathulate, entire, bristle-margined and somewhat leathery, often colouring red before falling. The flowers are clustered in dense terminal and lateral heads subtended by bristly bracts; each flower has a tubular, glandular-ribbed calyx and a slender salverform corolla with five spreading lobes of brilliant deep blue. There are five stamens and a five-branched style with stigmatic surfaces along the inner side; the fruit is a small membranous capsule enclosed in the persistent calyx, whose stiff bristles aid epizoochorous dispersal.

The genus Ceratostigma, described by Bunge, comprises a few Asian and African shrubs and subshrubs of Plumbaginaceae noted for their intense blue flowers and autumn foliage, the type collection of this species made by Griffith and named by C.B. Clarke. The bright corollas attract butterflies and bees, and the bristle-armed calyces cling to passing animals. Valued in horticulture for autumn colour, the wild plant is locally common in its dry-valley niche and not considered threatened.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of the Genus Ceratostigma (Plumbaginaceae)

Apocynaceae

Ceropegia meleagris 

by G & P Jürgens

H.Huber

Nepal 99 917 ergebnis
West-Nepal Roha 2900m, July
Nepal 99 918 ergebnis
West-Nepal Roha 2900m, July

Description

Ceropegia meleagris is a narrowly endemic herbaceous climber of the Apocynaceae (subfamily Asclepiadoideae), known only from the western Himalaya. GBIF records are few (18 occurrences) and confined to Nepal, indicating a restricted range and limited collection. The species grows in the temperate forest belt, scrambling through shrubs and herbaceous vegetation on banks, in scrub and at forest margins. The photographed plant from Roha in West Nepal at 2,900 m in July reflects its occurrence in the monsoon-moist middle hills, where flowering coincides with the summer rains.

The plant arises from a tuberous or fascicled rootstock and produces slender, twining, often somewhat fleshy stems. The leaves are opposite, simple, narrowly ovate to lanceolate and shortly petiolate. The flowers are the diagnostic feature of the genus: tubular and zygomorphic, with the five corolla lobes united at their tips to form a distinctive lantern- or cage-like canopy over the inflated, slightly curved corolla tube. The mottled, speckled patterning of the corolla evokes the guineafowl plumage from which the epithet meleagris is taken. As in all Ceropegia, the flowers function as temporary kettle traps that detain small Diptera, achieving pollination by means of paired pollinia. The fruit is a slender, paired follicle releasing comose seeds.

Ceropegia is a large, taxonomically intricate genus now construed to include the former Brachystelma and stapeliads, united by their elaborate trap-pollination syndrome. As a Himalayan endemic with very few documented localities, C. meleagris is of biogeographic and conservation interest; its restricted range, tuberous habit and specialised pollination make it potentially vulnerable to habitat disturbance and collection.

Author: H.Huber · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Nepal, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Bruyns: A Revision of Ceropegia (Apocynaceae, Asclepiadoideae)

Urticaceae

Chamabainia cuspidata

by G & P Jürgens

Wight

BhutanPG2011 92 ergebnis
Bhutan Chogcham, 3250m June
Sikkim2011 6
Bhutan Chogcham, 3250m June
Sikkim 2006 228 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Ramman 2100m, May

Description

Chamabainia cuspidata is a small creeping member of the nettle family ranging widely through the Himalaya, southern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia to Sri Lanka and Indonesia; GBIF records around 713 occurrences across China, Taiwan, Nepal, India, the Philippines, Bhutan and other tropical Asian countries. It is a plant of moist, shaded temperate and subtropical forest, carpeting damp banks, rocks, mossy ground and stream sides beneath the canopy. The images from Chogcham in Bhutan at 3250 m in June and from Ramman in West Bengal at 2100 m in May show it across a broad altitudinal span in cool, humid montane forest, where it forms low, spreading mats on the forest floor.

It is a slender, prostrate to creeping perennial herb with filiform stems rooting at the nodes and forming extensive ground-hugging patches. The leaves are small, opposite, ovate to broadly ovate, with a distinctly cuspidate apex (the source of the epithet) and a crenate-toothed margin, three-veined from the base and, like much of the family, lacking the stinging hairs of true nettles. The plant is monoecious, the minute, apetalous unisexual flowers borne in small dense axillary clusters; staminate flowers with a few stamens and pistillate flowers with a single ovary. The fruit is a small ovoid achene enclosed by the persistent perianth.

Chamabainia is a small genus within the Urticaceae, related to Pilea and the broader Elatostema alliance of shade-loving, mostly herbaceous forest plants; this species is the most widespread member and the type of the genus. Its creeping, mat-forming habit, reduced wind- or self-pollinated flowers and nodal rooting suit it to the humid, low-light understorey it occupies. It is common and widespread, of no conservation concern, but characteristic of well-shaded, moisture-retaining montane forest floors across tropical and subtropical Asia.

Author: Wight · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Urticaceae), Friis treatment of Urticaceae

Rosaceae

Chamaecallis perpusilloides

by GP Jürgens

(W.W.Sm.) Smedmark

Sikkim2011 285
Sikkim Lada-La 3800m, June
Sikkim2011 286
Sikkim Lada-La 3800m, June
Nepal 2001 285 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Lambra Kharka 3100m, May

Description

Chamaecallis perpusilloides is a diminutive alpine cushion herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan; its roughly 64 georeferenced collections trace a narrow Sino-Himalayan distribution. The species occupies the upper subalpine and alpine belt, where it grows in short turf, among rocks and on humus-rich, well-drained alpine slopes. The gatherings noted in the caption, from Lada-La in Sikkim at 3800 m in June and from Lambra Kharka in Gorkha, Nepal at 3100 m in May, are representative, the plant flowering early in the season at roughly 3000-4500 m on cool, moist, often grazed pasture.

It is a low, tufted to mat-forming perennial growing from a slender branched rootstock that gives rise to dense rosettes of small leaves. The leaves are crowded, trifoliolate with cuneate, few-toothed leaflets, and somewhat hairy, forming compact rosettes pressed close to the ground. The small flowers are solitary or few in number on short pedicels and barely overtop the foliage; they have five sepals alternating with an epicalyx, five small petals and few stamens, the receptacle bearing a small cluster of carpels that mature into dry achenes.

This taxon, based on the basionym described by W. W. Smith and transferred by Smedmark to the segregate genus Chamaecallis, exemplifies the recent dismemberment of the broadly defined Sibbaldia on molecular and morphological evidence; the original web placement under the Sibbaldia name reflects that history. The dwarf cushion habit and early flowering are adaptations to a short, cold growing season at high elevation. Pollination is by generalist alpine insects. No formal Red List assessment exists, but its restricted high-montane niche makes it potentially sensitive to alpine warming and grazing pressure.

Author: (W.W.Sm.) Smedmark · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Sibbaldia phylogeny (Smedmark) monograph

Orchideaceae

Cheirostylis yunnanensis

by GP Jürgens

Rolfe

Bh2008 488 G757 1
Bhutan Puna Tsang-Chu 1600m, May
Nepal1992 75 P108 ergebnis
Nepal Chirwa 1260m March 

Description

Cheirostylis yunnanensis is a small terrestrial jewel orchid of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, recorded by GBIF (129 occurrences) from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand. It inhabits shaded, humus-rich forest floors, mossy banks and rocky slopes in warm-temperate to subtropical broad-leaved and evergreen forest, broadly between 1000 and 2000 m. The documented plants from the Puna Tsang-Chu valley in Bhutan at 1600 m (May) and from Chirwa in eastern Nepal at 1260 m (March) bracket its lower-montane range and reveal a spring flowering period coinciding with the pre-monsoon flush of forest growth.

The species is a diminutive, creeping herb arising from a fleshy, jointed, often reddish rhizome that runs along the substrate surface, rooting at the nodes. The few small leaves are ovate, clustered toward the stem base, sometimes withering by flowering, with a velvety green to bronzed lamina. The inflorescence is a short, few-flowered terminal raceme on a glandular-pubescent peduncle. The small white flowers have connate sepals forming a tube; the diagnostic lip (labellum) bears a saccate base enclosing two glandular calli and an apex that is broadened and divided into two fan-shaped, fringed or toothed lobes, the generic name referring to this hand-like column structure. The fruit is a small ribbed capsule.

Described by Rolfe, the species belongs to genus Cheirostylis (subfamily Orchidoideae, tribe Cranichideae, subtribe Goodyerinae), the rhizomatous jewel orchids prized for foliage and intricate floral architecture. Like all terrestrial orchids it relies on mycorrhizal fungi and on shaded, undisturbed forest floor microhabitats, making it sensitive to forest clearance. Its inconspicuous size means populations are easily overlooked; though not formally assessed, it is CITES-listed as an orchid and locally uncommon.

Author: Rolfe · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Genera Orchidacearum: Orchidoideae (Pridgeon et al.)

Fabaceae

Chesneya nubigena

by G & P Jürgens

(D.Don) Ali

Nepal 99 312 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 4300m, June

Description

Chesneya nubigena (D.Don) Ali is a prostrate alpine legume of the Himalaya and Hindu Kush, represented by some 318 records concentrated in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and adjacent China, with scattered extralimital reports. It is a plant of high open ground: stony alpine slopes, gravelly flats, moraines and the margins of grazed pastures, generally between about 3500 and 4800 m. The individual photographed at Kalmura in West Nepal at 4300 m in June illustrates its occupation of cold, well-drained, often wind-exposed substrates where it grows close-pressed to the ground amid sparse turf.

The species forms a low, mat-forming to shortly tufted perennial from a deep woody rootstock and branched caudex. The leaves are imparipinnate with several pairs of small, oblong to obovate leaflets, often somewhat pubescent and frequently spine-tipped on persistent rachides. The flowers are large relative to the plant and borne singly or few together on short axillary peduncles; the papilionaceous corolla is yellow to reddish or purple-tinged, the standard broad and the keel obtuse. The calyx is tubular and obliquely toothed, and the fruit is an oblong, sessile to shortly stipitate, more or less inflated legume, hairy and several-seeded.

Chesneya is a small genus of central and high Asia closely allied to Astragalus and Gueldenstaedtia, and C. nubigena has been treated under various combinations reflecting its taxonomic history. Its cushion-like habit, deep roots and silky indumentum are classic adaptations to the cold, arid, high-radiation conditions of the inner Himalayan ranges, where it also fixes atmospheric nitrogen. Widespread if local, it is not regarded as threatened, though heavy grazing pressure in alpine pastures can locally reduce populations.

Author: (D.Don) Ali · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, revision of Chesneya and allied Astragaleae

Ericaceae

Chimaphila japonica

by G & P Jürgens

Miq.

BhutanPG2011 74
Bhutan Menchuang, 2700m June

Description

Chimaphila japonica Miq. is a diminutive evergreen subshrub with a wide temperate East Asian and Himalayan range, documented by GBIF from Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Taiwan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal across more than 3000 occurrences. It is a plant of shaded, humus-rich coniferous and mixed forest floors, often associated with mossy banks and the litter beneath fir, spruce and oak, generally between 1500 and 3000 m. The individual recorded at Menchuang in Bhutan at about 2700 m in June reflects this montane forest habitat, where the species benefits from the partial mycoheterotrophic nutrition characteristic of the wintergreen group.

The plant produces slender creeping rhizomes from which arise short, erect aerial stems bearing whorled or subverticillate, leathery, evergreen leaves. The leaves are oblanceolate to elliptic, sharply serrate towards the apex, dark green and glossy above, and somewhat clustered in the upper part of the stem. One to several nodding flowers are borne on a terminal peduncle; each flower has five spreading, waxy white to pinkish petals, ten stamens with conspicuously dilated, ciliate filaments and inflated anthers opening by pores, and a stout columnar style topped by a broad peltate stigma. The fruit is an erect, dehiscent globose capsule splitting from the apex.

Chimaphila belongs to the Pyroleae of subfamily Monotropoideae within a broadly circumscribed Ericaceae, partially mycoheterotrophic woodland herbs. Chimaphila japonica is closely allied to the boreal C. umbellata but is distinguished by its smaller stature and leaf form. Given its broad distribution it is not considered threatened, though it depends on intact forest soils and their mycorrhizal networks, making it a useful indicator of mature montane woodland.

Author: Miq. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Japan, Flora of Bhutan, Krisa monograph of Pyrolaceae