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.

Asteraceae

Dubyaea hispida

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 56
Bhutan Shele-La, 4000m September

Description

Dubyaea hispida is an alpine member of the lettuce tribe (Cichorieae) ranging across the eastern and central Himalaya into south-western China, with reliable records from Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Pakistan and China (Xizang, Yunnan, Sichuan); extra-regional points in Austria and Great Britain among the 544 occurrences represent cultivated or misattributed material rather than native range. It grows in moist alpine meadows, scrub margins, rocky slopes and streamsides, typically between about 3000 and 4300 m. The plant figured from the Shele-La pass in Bhutan at roughly 4000 m in September reflects its characteristic late-season flowering in cool, humid high-mountain habitats.

The species is a perennial herb with a short rhizome and erect, hispid stems clothed, like the peduncles and involucres, in spreading blackish or purplish multicellular hairs. The leaves are thin, oblong to lyrate-pinnatifid, with a large terminal lobe and a winged, amplexicaul petiole base; the upper leaves are reduced. The capitula are several, nodding in a loose corymb, with an involucre of imbricate, hispid phyllaries. The florets are all ligulate and yellow, as in the milky-juiced Cichorieae. The cypselae are narrowly fusiform, ribbed and slightly narrowed above, bearing a pappus of soft, white, finely barbellate bristles.

Dubyaea is a small Sino-Himalayan genus of perhaps a dozen species centred on the eastern Himalaya and Hengduan Shan, segregated from the related Crepis and Soroseris by its nodding heads, dark-hispid indumentum and distinctive achene and pappus characters. The nodding capitula and abundant glandular-setose vestiture are adaptations to wet alpine conditions, sheltering florets from rain. As a widespread high-elevation species across multiple countries, D. hispida is not considered threatened, although it is naturally restricted to the narrow alpine belt.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Stebbins Cichorieae of the Himalaya

Asteraceae

Duhaldea eupatorioides

by G & P Jürgens

(DC.) Anderb.

Bhutan2012 1356
Bhutan Sandrup 1500m, October

Description

Duhaldea eupatorioides is a subtropical to warm-temperate composite of the Himalaya and adjacent montane Asia, recorded from India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Laos and Vietnam, with GBIF listing about 156 occurrences. It grows on open hillsides, forest margins, scrub, roadcuts and grassy slopes in the foothill and lower montane belt, broadly from 1000 to 2500 m. The photographed plant was found in Bhutan at Sandrup at 1500 m in October, when the species comes into bloom at the close of the monsoon, its leafy stems carrying numerous small heads above the autumn grassland.

It is an erect, somewhat woody-based perennial herb or subshrub with leafy, branching, often pubescent stems. The leaves are alternate, ovate-lanceolate to elliptic, acuminate, with serrate margins and a finely hairy surface, narrowing to a short petiole or sessile base, the foliage recalling Eupatorium, hence the epithet. The capitula are small, numerous, and aggregated into terminal corymbose panicles; each head is radiate, with an involucre of several rows of imbricate bracts, marginal yellow ray florets and yellow tubular disc florets. The fruit is a ribbed, hairy cypsela crowned by a pappus of barbellate bristles, dispersed by wind.

The species belongs to the tribe Inuleae and to genus Duhaldea, a segregate split from the broadly defined Inula on molecular and morphological grounds; older floras may list it under Inula eupatorioides. A tolerant species of open and disturbed montane habitats, it is widespread and not of conservation concern. Its Sino-Himalayan to Indochinese range typifies the warm-temperate element of the southern Asian mountain arc.

Author: (DC.) Anderb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, generic revision of Inuleae (Anderberg)

Asteraceae

Duhaldea nervosa 

by G & P Jürgens

(Wall. ex DC.) Anderb.

Garw 2005 265 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kuno 2800m, September

Description

Duhaldea nervosa is a perennial composite of the Himalaya and montane south-east Asia, recorded from China, Nepal, Thailand, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. Its roughly 584 georeferenced collections span the temperate to subtropical hill belt from the western Himalaya eastward into Indochina. It grows on grassy slopes, open hillsides, forest margins, roadside banks and in scrub, favouring well-drained sunny to lightly shaded ground. The photographed plant from Garhwal at Kuno at 2800 m, flowering in September, is typical of its upper-temperate habitat and its late-monsoon to autumn flowering, when the capitula open above the surrounding herbage.

It is an erect, often hairy perennial herb with leafy stems arising from a woody rootstock. The alternate leaves are elliptic to lanceolate or oblong, with a finely toothed margin and conspicuous, raised lateral veins on the lower surface, the prominent venation giving the species its epithet nervosa. The capitula are radiate and borne in terminal corymbose clusters, each head with an involucre of several rows of imbricate, herbaceous to membranous bracts. The yellow ray florets are female and ligulate, surrounding numerous yellow, tubular, bisexual disc florets. The fruit is a ribbed, cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of barbellate bristles that aids wind dispersal.

Duhaldea was segregated from the broadly defined Inula and now comprises a group of Asian species formerly placed in that genus; D. nervosa was transferred from Inula by Anderberg, as the parenthetical authorship records. Members of the tribe Inuleae, these plants are visited by a range of generalist insect pollinators. D. nervosa is widespread and locally common across its extensive range and is of no conservation concern, several allied species being used in regional folk medicine.

Author: (Wall. ex DC.) Anderb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Anderberg's Phylogeny and Reclassification of the Tribe Inuleae

Verbenaceae

Duranta erecta

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2015 508
Bhutan Phobjika 2800m, October

Description

Duranta erecta, commonly called golden dewdrop or pigeon berry, is native to the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America through tropical South America to Argentina and Brazil. It has, however, become one of the most widely cultivated and naturalised ornamental shrubs in warm regions worldwide, a fact reflected in its enormous GBIF tally of over nineteen thousand occurrences spanning the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. In the Himalaya it occurs only as a cultivated and locally escaping plant; the individual photographed at Phobjika in Bhutan at 2800 m in October represents such a planting in a temperate valley, well above the species' tropical comfort zone, where it is grown as a hedge or garden ornamental and flowers and fruits abundantly in the warm season. It thrives in disturbed ground, gardens, roadsides and waste places, and in many tropical countries is regarded as an invasive weed.

The plant is an evergreen, often spreading shrub or small tree to several metres, with slender, arching, sometimes pendulous and frequently spiny branches that may be four-angled when young. The leaves are opposite or whorled, elliptic to obovate, entire to toothed in the upper half, and light green. The flowers are borne in slender terminal and axillary racemes; the tubular corolla is pale blue to lavender (occasionally white), with five spreading, slightly unequal lobes. The fruit is a glossy, rounded, yellow to orange drupe enclosed by the persistent, beaked calyx, borne in showy pendent clusters; the berries and foliage contain saponins and are toxic to humans and livestock, though birds disperse the seeds freely.

Duranta is a small genus traditionally placed in the Verbenaceae, and D. erecta is its most familiar species, prized horticulturally for its long flowering season, attractive golden fruits and several variegated and golden-leaved cultivars. Its ornamental virtues are matched by a significant ecological downside: through bird-mediated seed dispersal it has become a serious environmental weed in parts of Australia, southern Africa and the Pacific. Its presence in the high Bhutanese Himalaya illustrates the global reach of horticultural commerce, and although frost limits its persistence at such elevations, its weediness elsewhere makes it a species of note for biosecurity rather than conservation.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 17, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2 Part 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, A Generic Revision of the Verbenaceae (Harold N. Moldenke)

Asteraceae

Echinops cornigerus 

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Garw 2005 182 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Pana 2800m, September

Description

Echinops cornigerus is a Sino-Himalayan globe-thistle distributed across the western and central Himalaya and adjacent Tibetan plateau, with verified records from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and China, alongside a scatter of cultivated or extra-regional occurrences (Iran, France, Belgium) among the roughly 294 georeferenced GBIF collections. It inhabits open, sunny slopes, dry stony pastures, forest margins and disturbed ground in the upper temperate to subalpine belt, typically between about 2000 and 3500 m. The plant photographed at Pana in the Garhwal Himalaya at 2800 m in September, fruiting at the close of the monsoon, exemplifies its preference for well-drained montane grassland exposed to strong insolation.

A stout perennial herb, it forms an erect, ridged and somewhat cottony-tomentose stem arising from a woody rootstock. The leaves are coriaceous, deeply pinnatifid to bipinnatifid, glabrescent and green above but white-tomentose beneath, the lobes terminating in conspicuous rigid yellowish spines. The inflorescence is the spherical compound capitulum characteristic of the genus: numerous one-flowered capitula aggregated into a globose synflorescence, each enclosed by stiff bristly involucral scales. The corollas are tubular, pale blue to whitish, and the achenes are cylindrical, densely hairy and crowned by a short pappus of fused scales.

The genus Echinops is taxonomically intricate, the spherical secondary head having evolved as a striking adaptation that pools many reduced florets into a single pollinator-attracting unit. The spiny architecture deters mammalian grazing, an advantage in heavily pastured Himalayan rangelands. Though not assessed as threatened, populations are locally affected by overgrazing and slope disturbance, and the species remains a useful indicator of dry montane grassland.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China (Asteraceae), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Kew monograph of Echinops

Thymelaeaceae

Edgeworthia gardneri

by GP Jürgens

(Wall.) Meisn.

Nepal 1994 255 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Mewa-Khola
2100m April
Nepal 1994 197 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Mewa-Khola
2100m April
sub1hsn8
Nepal Amjilassa 2400m March

Description

Edgeworthia gardneri is a deciduous to semi-evergreen shrub of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent mountains. GBIF records (some 484 occurrences) place it in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Vietnam, with cultivated material in Japan, France, New Zealand and elsewhere. It grows in moist temperate broadleaved forest, forest margins, ravines and shrubby slopes, typically between about 1,500 and 2,800 m. The illustrated plants are from eastern Nepal at Mewa-Khola (2,100 m, April) and Amjilassa (2,400 m, March), flowering in late winter to early spring before or with leaf flush, characteristic of its phenology in the warm temperate zone.

The plant is a shrub 1–3 m tall with flexible, tough-barked branches that can be tied in a knot without breaking. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, entire and somewhat silky beneath. The flowers are aggregated into dense, pendent, hemispherical heads on short peduncles; each flower lacks petals, the floral tube being silky-tomentose outside and yellow within, fragrant. The fruit is a small dry achene-like drupe enclosed in the persistent perianth base.

Like its relative Daphne, Edgeworthia yields strong bast fibre: the bark is an important source of traditional handmade paper (lokta-type) in Nepal and Bhutan, giving the genus economic significance. It is also valued as a winter-flowering ornamental. The species is widespread and not globally threatened, though bark harvesting represents a localised pressure on accessible wild stands.

Author: (Wall.) Meisn. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Halda: The Genus Daphne (and allied Thymelaeaceae)

Elaeagnaceae

Elaeagnus caudata

by GP Jürgens

Schltdl.

Bh09 46 G84
Bhutan Paro 2400m, June
Bhutan2014 852 scaled
Bhutan Thimphu 2500m, May
Bhutan2014 853 scaled
Bhutan Thimphu 2500m, May

Description

Elaeagnus caudata Schltdl. ex Momiy. is a shrub or small tree of the Elaeagnaceae endemic to the central and eastern Himalaya, known from Nepal, northern India and Bhutan. Documented from only a small number of georeferenced collections, it grows in temperate forest margins, thickets, shrubby slopes and along the edges of cultivation in the mid-montane zone. The photographed plants from the Paro and Thimphu valleys of Bhutan, recorded at 2,400–2,500 m in May and June, are characteristic of its preference for the cool, well-lit temperate belt where it flowers in late spring and early summer.

The plant is densely clothed throughout in the silvery to rusty-brown peltate scales typical of the family, which give the young shoots, leaf undersides and flowers a metallic lustre. The leaves are alternate, elliptic to ovate, often long-acuminate (the caudate apex giving the species its name), green and stellate-scaly above and silvery-lepidote beneath. The flowers are small, tubular and apetalous, with a four-lobed, silvery-scaly perianth, fragrant and borne in axillary clusters. The fruit is an oblong, drupe-like achene enclosed by the fleshy, accrescent perianth tube, ripening reddish and scaly, edible when fully mature.

Like other members of Elaeagnus, the species harbours nitrogen-fixing Frankia actinobacteria in root nodules, enabling it to colonise poor soils and contribute to soil fertility, a trait that makes such shrubs significant in montane succession. Its restricted Himalayan range and the small number of records suggest it is genuinely localised, though the difficulty of distinguishing the many scaly-leaved Himalayan Elaeagnus species means its true distribution may be under-documented and warrants further survey.

Author: Schltdl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 13, Sun & Lin: Revision of Elaeagnus

Elaeagnaceae

Elaeagnus umbellata var. umbellata

by GP Jürgens

nn

Bhutan2014 184
Bhutan Trashyangtse 2150m, May

Description

Elaeagnus umbellata var. umbellata is the typical variety of the autumn olive, a deciduous shrub of the Elaeagnaceae native to eastern and southern Asia, with records (GBIF: c. 1,148 occurrences) from Japan, Korea, China, Nepal and India, and naturalised in parts of Europe and North America. In the Himalaya it occupies forest margins, open slopes, thickets and disturbed ground in the temperate zone, roughly between 1,200 and 3,000 m. The photographed plant from Trashyangtse in eastern Bhutan at about 2,150 m, flowering in May, reflects its spring flowering on sunny montane slopes.

The plant is a spreading shrub up to 3–4 m tall, often armed with short thorny lateral branchlets, and the young shoots, leaf undersides and fruits are densely covered with silvery and rufous peltate scales (lepidote indumentum) characteristic of the family. The leaves are alternate, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, green above and silvery-scaly beneath, with undulate margins. The flowers are small, fragrant, tubular-campanulate and creamy white to pale yellow, borne in axillary clusters; they are apetalous, the showy part being the four-lobed calyx tube. The fruit is a fleshy, drupe-like achene that ripens red, speckled with silvery scales, and is edible and sweet-acidic.

Like other Elaeagnus species, var. umbellata is an actinorhizal nitrogen-fixer hosting symbiotic Frankia in root nodules, allowing it to thrive on poor soils. This trait, combined with prolific bird-dispersed fruiting, has made it a notorious invasive shrub where introduced, though within its native Himalayan range it is a benign, locally useful component of the flora. The GBIF accepted name is rendered as Elaeagnus umbellata umbellata.

Author: nn · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Servettaz: Monographie des Elaeagnacees

Plantaginaceae

Ellisiophyllum pinnatum

by GP Jürgens

(Wall. ex Benth.) Makino

Bhutan2014 792 scaled
Bhutan, Mo-Chu 1500m, May
Bhutan2014 791 scaled
Bhutan

Description

Ellisiophyllum pinnatum is a wide-ranging creeping herb distributed across temperate and montane East and South-East Asia, from the Himalaya through China, Taiwan and Japan to the Philippines, New Guinea and Papua. Its 1616 GBIF records, the highest in this group, confirm a broad native range, with the few European and North American points representing cultivated or herbarium material. It favours moist, shaded ground along streamsides, damp banks, ditches and forest margins, often at lower to middle montane elevations. The plant photographed along the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at about 1500 m in May reflects this preference for cool, humid riparian habitats in the Eastern Himalaya.

It is a slender, softly pubescent perennial that creeps and roots at the nodes, forming loose mats by means of prostrate, filiform stolons. The leaves are alternate, long-petiolate and deeply pinnately lobed to pinnatisect, with rounded, crenate segments. The flowers are solitary on long, slender axillary pedicels; the campanulate calyx has five lobes, and the white, broadly campanulate to rotate corolla is five-lobed, enclosing four didynamous stamens. The fruit is a small capsule enclosed within the accrescent calyx.

Ellisiophyllum is a monotypic genus, E. pinnatum being its sole species, and its placement has long been debated; once referred to the Scrophulariaceae, it is now placed in the Plantaginaceae following molecular phylogenetic studies of the lamiid families. The creeping, stoloniferous, node-rooting habit suits colonisation of unstable, frequently disturbed streambanks. Given its extensive geographic range and ecological adaptability, the species is of no conservation concern.

Author: (Wall. ex Benth.) Makino · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Japan

Lamiaceae

Elsholtzia flava 

by G & P Jürgens

Benth.

Garw 2005 221 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Simkarok 2700m, September

Description

Elsholtzia flava is a Sino-Himalayan element distributed across the temperate to subtropical mountains of southern and eastern Asia, with verified records from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Japan; GBIF aggregates some 558 occurrences, several of them at the eastern margin of the genus's range. In the western Himalaya it ascends to around 2700 m, as documented by the photographed material from Simkarok in Indian Garhwal collected in September, the late-monsoon flowering season. It is a plant of open slopes, forest margins, clearings and disturbed ground on moist, humus-rich soils, behaving as a robust ruderal sub-shrub that exploits gaps in the upper temperate broadleaf belt.

The species is a coarse, aromatic perennial or shrubby herb reaching 1-2 m, with erect, branched, quadrangular and finely pubescent stems woody at the base. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate at the apex and crenate-serrate along the margins, glandular-punctate beneath and exuding the characteristic mint scent of the genus. Small flowers are crowded into dense, secund, cylindrical spike-like verticillasters; the campanulate calyx is five-toothed and the corolla pale yellow ("flava"), two-lipped, with four didynamous exserted stamens. The fruit comprises four smooth, ovoid-oblong nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Elsholtzia (Lamiaceae, tribe Elsholtzieae) is centred on eastern Asia and includes many late-flowering, nectar-rich, bee-pollinated species important to autumn foragers. E. flava is locally common and not regarded as threatened, its tolerance of disturbance favouring persistence; its terpenoid-rich essential oils link it to congeners long used in folk medicine and as aromatic herbs across the Himalayan and Chinese highlands.

Author: Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Press et al. Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Harley et al. Labiatae (Kubitzki, The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)