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.

Orchideaceae

Epipactis royleana

by G & P Jürgens

Lindl.

Nepal 99 177 ergebnis
West-Nepal Lara-Lake 3000m, June

Description

Epipactis royleana Lindl. is a terrestrial orchid of central and western Asia and the Himalaya, with GBIF documenting some 262 occurrences across Nepal, India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bhutan, Myanmar and Russia, with scattered records farther afield. It typically grows in moist habitats such as streamsides, marshy meadows, seepage slopes and open coniferous woodland from the montane to subalpine zones, often between about 1500 and 3500 m. The plant photographed at Lara-Lake in West Nepal, at roughly 3000 m in June, illustrates its preference for the damp, lake-margin grasslands of the high Himalayan valleys.

The species is a rhizomatous perennial with erect, leafy stems arising from a short creeping rootstock. The leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate, sheathing at the base and prominently veined. The inflorescence is a lax, one-sided terminal raceme of several to many resupinate flowers; each flower has spreading, greenish to purplish-tinged sepals and petals, with a labellum divided into a cup-like basal hypochile and a triangular, often pinkish epichile. As in all Epipactis, the column bears a single anther and the pollinia are mealy, and the fruit is a pendulous, ridged capsule releasing dust-like seeds.

Epipactis is a Holarctic genus in which Himalayan and central Asian taxa form a distinct group; E. royleana is among the more widespread members, exhibiting considerable variation in flower colour across its range. Like other members of the genus it depends on mycorrhizal fungi for germination and early establishment, and its small seeds are wind-dispersed. The species is not currently regarded as threatened across its broad distribution, though, as a wetland-associated orchid, local populations are sensitive to drainage and habitat disturbance.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, Delforge Orchids of Europe and Asia

Acanthaceae

Eranthemum purpurascens

by GP Jürgens

Wight ex Nees

Nepal1992 81 P114 ergebnis
Nepal Sokathum1650m, March 

Description

Eranthemum purpurascens is a subtropical understorey shrub of the Himalayan foothills and adjacent Indian subcontinent, recorded principally from India and Nepal, with cultivated and naturalised occurrences in China, Indonesia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the United States reflecting its ornamental use. It grows in the shaded understorey of moist subtropical and lower temperate forest, along streambanks and shaded ravines, generally between about 600 and 1800 m. The photographed plant from Sokathum, Nepal, at roughly 1650 m and flowering in March, exemplifies its early-spring blooming in warm, sheltered hill forest before the onset of the monsoon.

The plant is an erect, soft-wooded shrub with quadrangular, often swollen-nodal stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to elliptic, acuminate, entire to obscurely crenate, and frequently bear cystoliths visible as fine streaks on the lamina. The flowers are borne in dense terminal and axillary spikes subtended by conspicuous, often purple-tinged bracts. Each flower has a slender corolla tube expanding into a spreading five-lobed limb of pale blue to violet, with two exserted stamens; the fruit is a clavate, explosively dehiscent capsule bearing seeds on hooked retinacula typical of the Acanthaceae.

The epithet purpurascens refers to the purplish bracts and flushed foliage. Eranthemum is a tropical Asian genus allied to Pseuderanthemum and Daedalacanthus, several members of which, including this species, are cultivated for their winter and spring colour. The conspicuous bracts and tubular blue corollas are adapted to insect pollination, while the cystolith-bearing leaves are a diagnostic family feature. The species is locally common and not regarded as threatened.

Author: Wight ex Nees · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Acanthaceae of the Indian Subcontinent

Aristolochiaceae

Eria clausa

by GP Jürgens

King & Pantl.

Bhutan2014 175
Bhutan Trashiyangtse 2000m, May

Description

Eria clausa King & Pantl. is an epiphytic orchid of the subtribe Eriinae (Orchidaceae), distributed through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent regions. GBIF records (78 occurrences) document its presence in China, Vietnam, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and New Guinea, indicating a broadly Sino-Himalayan to Southeast Asian range. The species was photographed at Trashiyangtse in Bhutan at 2,000 m in May, a setting typical of its occurrence in humid, mossy broad-leaved and mixed evergreen forests, where it grows on tree trunks and branches at montane elevations between roughly 1,500 and 2,500 m.

The plant produces clustered, fleshy pseudobulbs from a short rhizome, each bearing a few coriaceous, oblong to lanceolate leaves at the apex. The inflorescence is a short, few- to several-flowered raceme arising near the pseudobulb apex; the flowers are small, whitish to pale yellow, and remain only partly opening, a feature reflected in the epithet "clausa" (closed). The lip is trilobed and the column is short and footed, conforming to the structural plan of the Eria alliance.

The genus Eria has been substantially redefined following molecular work, with many former species transferred to segregate genera; the placement of clausa should therefore be read against this ongoing reorganisation of the Eriinae. As an epiphyte dependent on intact, humid forest canopy, the species is sensitive to logging and forest degradation, and like all orchids it is listed under CITES Appendix II, regulating international trade.

Author: King & Pantl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 25, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Pearce & Cribb: The Orchids of Bhutan (2002)

Asteraceae

Erigeron multiradiatus

by GP Jürgens

(Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f.

BhutanPG2011 371
Bhutan Dur-Tso, 4000m June
Sikkim2003 429 G596
Sikkim Chopta Valley 4100m August

Description

Erigeron multiradiatus (Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f. is a Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan fleabane distributed through China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bhutan, with around 1400 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of alpine and subalpine meadows, open grassy slopes, rocky ground and forest clearings, generally between about 2700 and 4500 m. The collections from Dur-Tso at 4000 m in June and the Chopta valley in Sikkim at 4100 m in August are characteristic of its high-altitude summer flowering across the central and eastern Himalaya.

It is a tufted perennial herb arising from a short rhizome, with erect, simple or sparingly branched stems bearing spreading hairs. The basal leaves are oblanceolate to spatulate, narrowed to a petiole and entire to slightly toothed, forming a rosette; the cauline leaves are smaller, sessile and clasping. The solitary or few terminal capitula are large and showy, with an involucre of narrow, hairy, somewhat purplish phyllaries; the numerous, very fine ray florets, alluded to in the epithet multiradiatus, are pinkish-purple to violet and surround a central disc of yellow tubular florets. The fruit is a small, compressed, hairy cypsela topped by a double pappus of fine bristles.

Erigeron is a large, taxonomically intricate genus, and the densely many-rayed alpine Himalayan species form a distinctive assemblage within it, recognised by their broad showy heads and high-elevation habitat. A widespread and locally common alpine herb, E. multiradiatus is of no particular conservation concern, though it is valued horticulturally and in regional traditional medicine.

Author: (Lindl. ex DC.) Benth. & Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Grierson & Long Flora of Bhutan Compositae account

Rosaceae

Eriobotrya petiolata

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

Bhutan2014 274
Bhutan Trithangebe 700m, May
Bhutan2014 276
Bhutan Trithangebe 700m, May

Description

Eriobotrya petiolata is a small evergreen tree of the eastern Himalayan and Indo-Burmese subtropical forests, recorded from India, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and China, with cultivated or vagrant records noted from Spain and the United States among the 62 GBIF occurrences. It inhabits warm broadleaved and subtropical hill forest at relatively low elevations. The photographed tree at Trithangebe in southern Bhutan at only 700 m, flowering in May, typifies its preference for humid, frost-free montane foothills well below the alpine plants that dominate the region's high passes.

The species is a tree with stout petiolate leaves, the feature underlying its epithet. The leaves are coriaceous, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, with a prominent reticulate venation, an acuminate apex, and a margin that is entire to remotely serrate; young growth and the lower surface are typically clothed in rusty tomentum that weathers with age. The inflorescence is a terminal, much-branched, woolly panicle of small white flowers, each with five sepals, five petals, numerous stamens and an inferior ovary. The fruit is a small pome, fleshy at maturity and crowned by the persistent calyx, characteristic of the loquat genus.

GBIF treats the himalayaflora name as a synonym, with Eriobotrya petiolata (Hook.f.) the accepted entity in this dataset; the genus Eriobotrya is itself often submerged within Rhaphiolepis (and broadly within subfamily Maloideae of Rosaceae) in recent molecular treatments, so nomenclature remains in flux. Ecologically the fleshy pomes are dispersed by birds and mammals. As a forest tree of a comparatively restricted Himalayan-Burmese range, it is most threatened by lowland deforestation rather than by any intrinsic rarity.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Rosaceae), Vidal Eriobotrya revision

Ranunculaceae

Eriocapitella rivularis

by GP Jürgens

(Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Christenh. & Byng

Bh09 197 P337
Bhutan above Thimphu, 3000m June
Bh09 68 P118
Bhutan above Thimphu, 3000m June
Nepal 99 169 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Tara-Lake 3000m, June

Description

Eriocapitella rivularis (formerly Anemone rivularis) is a widely distributed montane herb of the Sino-Himalayan region. GBIF records span China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Pakistan, extending to Sri Lanka, with introduced or cultivated occurrences in Europe, Japan and North America, totalling close to 2000 georeferenced collections. It favours moist alpine and subalpine meadows, stream banks, open slopes and forest margins, generally between 2000 and 4200 m. The populations illustrated here were photographed above Thimphu in Bhutan and south of Tara-Lake in West Nepal, both at around 3000 m and flowering in June, typical of its early-summer phenology in the central Himalaya.

It is an erect perennial 20-80 cm tall arising from a stout rootstock, the stems and petioles clothed in spreading white hairs. Basal leaves are long-petiolate and palmately 3-5-lobed, the segments coarsely toothed and bristly. The inflorescence is a lax cyme subtended by a leafy involucre of sessile bracts. Flowers are showy, with 5-6 white petaloid sepals often tinged bluish on the reverse and numerous stamens bearing conspicuous blue-violet anthers; true petals are absent. The fruit is an aggregate of flattened, narrowly winged achenes terminating in a slender hooked beak that aids epizoochorous dispersal.

The transfer to the segregate genus Eriocapitella reflects molecular work resolving the paraphyly of Anemone sensu lato. Pharmacologically it is notable as a source of triterpenoid saponins and is used in Himalayan folk medicine. Its broad ecological amplitude, abundant achene production and wind-aided dispersal render it locally common and of no conservation concern, a characteristic component of grazed Himalayan pasture.

Author: (Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Christenh. & Byng · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Monograph of the genus Anemone (Ranunculaceae)

Ranunculaceae

Eriocapitella rupicola

by G & P Jürgens

(Cambess.) Christenh. & Byng

BhutanPG2011 207
Bhutan Tsochenchen, 3500m June
BhutanPG2011 586
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Miluthang, 4450m July
Nepal 99 130 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3800m, June
Nepal 99 529 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3800m, June

Description

Eriocapitella rupicola, formerly Anemone rupicola, is a Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan herb distributed from Pakistan through Nepal, India and Bhutan into China, with around 507 GBIF occurrences. It grows in alpine and subalpine habitats, on rocky slopes, cliff ledges, open meadows, stony pastures and among boulders, often in well-drained sites in the upper subalpine to alpine zone. The images document it widely in the range: Bhutan at Tsochenchen around 3500 m in June and along the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail at Miluthang near 4450 m in July, and West Nepal south of Rara Lake at about 3800 m in June, where its white blooms open through the early summer.

It is a perennial herb arising from a stout rootstock, with basal leaves that are ternately to palmately divided into toothed, deeply cut segments, hairy on the surfaces. The flowering stems are erect and bear an involucre of stalked, leaf-like bracts below the flowers. The flowers are solitary or few, comparatively large and showy, with several (commonly five) petaloid white sepals, often flushed pink or bluish on the reverse, and numerous stamens surrounding a head of carpels. The fruit is a head of densely woolly, long-hairy achenes, the indumentum aiding wind dispersal.

The species has been transferred to Eriocapitella, a segregate genus carved from the broadly circumscribed Anemone on molecular and morphological grounds by Christenhusz and Byng; POWO accepts this placement, with Anemone rupicola as a synonym. The woolly achene heads (the basis of the generic name) are characteristic. The showy white flowers attract generalist alpine insect pollinators. Widespread across the Himalaya, it is common and of least conservation concern.

Author: (Cambess.) Christenh. & Byng · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Christenhusz & Byng revision of Anemone s.l.

Ranunculaceae

Eriocapitella vitifolia 

by G & P Jürgens

(Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Nakai

Bhutan2012 1325
Bhutan Pemagatse 1900m, October
Bhutan2012 447
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September
Garw 2005 255 ergebnis scaled
Garw 2005 256 ergebnis scaled
India Garhwal Sitel 1850m, September

Description

Eriocapitella vitifolia (formerly Anemone vitifolia) is a robust perennial herb widespread across the Himalaya and East Asia, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Taiwan, Myanmar, Pakistan and beyond, with nearly 2000 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF reflecting both its native range and ornamental cultivation. It favours forest margins, open slopes, shrubberies and disturbed banks, mainly in the warm- to cool-temperate belt between about 1500 and 3000 m. The plants illustrated were photographed in Bhutan at Pemagatse (1900 m) and Wangdi (2500 m) and in the Indian Garhwal at Sitel (1850 m), flowering from September into October.

The species arises from a stout, woody rootstock and produces long-petiolate basal leaves with broadly cordate-ovate, vine-like (vitifolia, grape-leaved) blades that are shallowly three- to five-lobed, toothed, and densely white-tomentose beneath. Tall, branching flowering scapes bear cymose clusters of showy flowers, each with five to many petaloid sepals (true petals absent) that are white to pale pink, surrounding a central mass of numerous yellow stamens and a domed cluster of carpels. The fruiting head is globose and conspicuously woolly, the densely hairy achenes being adapted for wind dispersal, a feature reflected in the generic name.

Eriocapitella was segregated from Anemone (Ranunculaceae) on molecular and morphological grounds, comprising the woolly-fruited Asian anemones, and E. vitifolia is one of its most familiar Himalayan representatives. It is widely grown in temperate gardens and is an ancestral parent of the cultivated Japanese anemones, explaining scattered records in Europe, North America and southern Africa. Containing acrid ranunculaceous compounds, it is avoided by grazers and, common and adaptable, is of no conservation concern.

Author: (Buch.-Ham. ex DC.) Nakai · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Hoot et al. Phylogeny of Anemone and Allies

Lamiaceae

Eriophyton wallichii

by GP Jürgens

Benth.

Sikkim2003 319 P458
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4300m August
Sikkim2003 322 P457
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4300m August

Description

Eriophyton wallichii is a high-alpine perennial of the central and eastern Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Afghanistan, with some 605 georeferenced occurrences documented in GBIF. It is a characteristic plant of open screes, moraines and frost-heaved gravels of the upper alpine and subnival zones, typically between 3500 and 5000 m, where the growing season is brief. The photograph from the Saniti Lake area of Sikkim at about 4300 m in August captures the species in its preferred scree habitat at the height of the short montane summer.

The plant forms a stout, deeply buried rhizome from which arise short, ascending stems almost entirely concealed by the foliage. The most conspicuous feature is the dense covering of long, silky white woolly hairs that envelop the upper leaves, an adaptation buffering the flowers against cold and excessive radiation. The leaves are opposite, broadly ovate to suborbicular, becoming progressively larger and more densely lanate upward, where the uppermost pairs form a protective bracteal cup. The bilabiate flowers are borne in the axils of these terminal leaves, with a tubular calyx and a pink to purplish corolla whose lower lip is spreading; the fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed within the persistent calyx.

The genus Eriophyton sensu lato (incorporating elements formerly placed in Alajja and Stachyopsis) is a small, distinctly Sino-Himalayan group of the Lamiaceae adapted to the harshest alpine environments. The pronounced indumentum exemplifies the convergent woolliness seen in unrelated subnival cushion and scree plants such as Saussurea and Soroseris. Long valued in Tibetan and Himalayan ethnomedicine, E. wallichii remains locally frequent across its broad range and is not presently considered threatened, though its specialised scree habitat is sensitive to glacial retreat and shifting alpine climates.

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

Brassicaceae

Erysimum benthamii

by G & P Jürgens

Monnet

Nepal 2009 88 ergebnis
Nepal Helambu Bolgoau 2050, May

Description

Erysimum benthamii is a Himalayan crucifer recorded from China, Nepal, Bhutan and India, with over 230 georeferenced occurrences spanning the central and eastern Himalaya. It favours open, sunny situations on dry banks, stony slopes, forest clearings and disturbed ground in the temperate and subalpine zones. The plant illustrated from Helambu at Bolgaon (about 2050 m) in Nepal in May reflects its typical mid-elevation habitat, where it flowers in spring on well-drained, often rocky or gravelly soils along trails and open hillsides.

It is an erect biennial or short-lived perennial herb covered, like most members of the genus, in appressed medifixed (malpighiaceous) two- to several-branched hairs that give the foliage a greyish cast. The stem is simple or branched above and bears narrowly lanceolate to linear, entire or remotely denticulate leaves. The flowers are arranged in elongating terminal racemes; the four sepals are erect, and the four clawed petals are bright yellow to orange-yellow in the cruciform arrangement typical of Brassicaceae. The fruit is a long, slender, four-angled silique held more or less erect on a short pedicel, splitting at maturity to release two rows of small seeds.

Erysimum is a large Holarctic genus whose Himalayan representatives are taxonomically intricate, distinguished by trichome branching, fruit shape and indumentum density; E. benthamii is set apart by these vegetative and silique characters. The presence of an indeterminate-country record (coded ZZ) reflects imprecise georeferencing rather than any disjunct range. Widespread and tolerant of disturbance, the species is of least conservation concern.

Author: Monnet · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Polatschek's revisions of Erysimum