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.

Geraniaceae

Geranium wallichianum

by G & P Jürgens

D.Don

Garw 2005 271 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2650m, October

Description

Geranium wallichianum is a perennial cranesbill native to the Himalaya and adjacent mountain systems, distributed from Afghanistan and Pakistan through northern India (Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand) to Nepal, Bhutan, and southwestern China. It inhabits alpine and subalpine meadows, forest margins, open shrublands, and grassy slopes at elevations of 2,000–4,000 m, frequently forming extensive patches in disturbed and grazed areas. The species has been documented near Kunol in the Garhwal Himalaya at 2,650 m, where it flowers late into the autumn season in October.
The plant is a spreading to trailing perennial herb with a thick, woody rootstock and procumbent to ascending stems 20–60 cm long, covered in retrorse or patent hairs. Leaves are long-petiolate, orbicular in outline, 5–10 cm in diameter, deeply palmately divided into five to seven rhombic, further lobed and toothed segments. The flowers are large and showy, 3–4 cm in diameter, borne singly or in pairs on long, glandular-hairy pedicels. Petals are five, broadly obovate, typically violet-blue to lavender with a conspicuous white centre and darker veins radiating from the base. Stamens are ten with dark anthers. The fruit is a schizocarp with a persistent beak (rostrum) 2–3 cm long; at maturity the five mericarps separate elastically, each retaining a single seed.
Geranium wallichianum is among the most horticulturally significant Himalayan cranesbills, widely cultivated in temperate gardens worldwide since the nineteenth century. The cultivar 'Buxton's Variety' (syn. 'Buxton's Blue'), selected for its clear blue flowers with prominent white eyes, has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit and remains one of the most popular autumn-flowering hardy geraniums. In its native range, the species is ecologically important as a ground-cover plant that stabilizes soil on slopes and provides late-season nectar for pollinators. It is named after the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich, who collected extensively in Nepal and India.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Yeo: Hardy Geraniums (2002), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Asteraceae

Gerbera maxima

by G & P Jürgens

Beauverd

Nepal 2009 111 ergebnis scaled
Nepal 2009 112 ergebnis scaled
Nepal Helambu Indrawati-Khola Valley 1750, May

Description

Gerbera maxima is an eastern Himalayan perennial herb distributed across Nepal, northern India, Bhutan and adjacent south-central China (Yunnan, Xizang), the modest tally of around seventeen georeferenced GBIF records reflecting its scattered occurrence rather than true rarity. It favours open grassy hillsides, forest margins, terraced banks and disturbed sunny slopes in the subtropical to lower temperate belt. The photographed plant, from the Indrawati-Khola valley in the Helambu region of central Nepal at roughly 1750 m and flowering in May, typifies its mid-montane preference for warm, well-drained, often grazed openings.

The species forms a stout caudex from which arises a basal rosette of large, lyrate-pinnatifid to broadly obovate leaves that are densely white-tomentose beneath and greener above, the margins sinuate-dentate and the petioles winged. From the rosette a leafless, woolly scape bears a solitary, comparatively large radiate capitulum. The involucral bracts are imbricate and tomentose; the ray florets are bilabiate, typically pale pink to whitish or yellowish, surrounding numerous tubular disc florets. The fruit is a slender, ribbed cypsela tapering into a beak and crowned by a pappus of barbellate bristles, adapted to wind dispersal.

Gerbera (Asteraceae, tribe Mutisieae) is an Old World genus centred on Africa and Asia, and G. maxima is here treated as the accepted name. The two-lipped ray corollas place it within the mutisioid lineage, and its tomentose indumentum is a xeromorphic adaptation to insolated, seasonally dry montane slopes. No formal conservation assessment exists; its tolerance of grazing and disturbance suggests local resilience, though habitat conversion across the mid-hills warrants monitoring.

Author: Beauverd · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Hand-Mazzetti revision of Asian Gerbera (Mutisieae monograph)

Asteraceae

Gerbera piloselloides

by GP Jürgens

Cass.

Bh2008 487 P756
Bhutan Samtengang 2100, May
Bh09 355 G572
Bhutan Samtengang 2100, May

Description

Gerbera piloselloides is a remarkably wide-ranging species spanning the palaeotropics, with GBIF recording over 2780 occurrences from South Africa, Madagascar and tropical East and Central Africa eastward through the Himalaya and southern China to Myanmar and Thailand. Across this disjunct Afro-Asian range it occupies open grassland, sunny hill slopes, sparse pine forest, roadsides and disturbed pasture, generally on well-drained, often acidic soils. In the Eastern Himalaya it occurs in the subtropical to lower temperate zone, the figured plant from Samtengang in central Bhutan at about 2100 m flowering in May, a season coinciding with the onset of the warm months when the basal rosettes throw up their solitary scapes.

The species is a stemless perennial herb forming a flat rosette from a short rhizome. The leaves are entire, oblanceolate to obovate-spathulate, narrowed to the base, green and thinly hairy above but conspicuously white-tomentose beneath. From the rosette centre arise one or more slender, leafless, woolly scapes each terminating in a single heterogamous capitulum. The involucre is campanulate with imbricate phyllaries; the outer female florets are bilabiate, white to pinkish above and reddish beneath, encircling tubular bisexual disc florets. The fruit is a narrowly fusiform, beaked, hairy cypsela bearing a pappus of numerous barbellate bristles.

Referable to Cassini, the binomial Gerbera piloselloides is accepted by GBIF; it has at times been segregated into the genus Piloselloides, and the name is treated here as accepted following current consensus. Within the tribe Mutisieae, Gerbera is noted for its bilabiate marginal florets, and the broad Old World distribution of this taxon reflects both ancient biogeographic connections and tolerance of disturbed, fire-maintained grassland. Its colonising ability in open habitats makes it secure across its range, and it is of no conservation concern.

Author: Cass. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora Zambesiaca, Hansen's revision of Gerbera (Mutisieae)

Rosaceae

Geum elatum

by G & P Jürgens

Wall ex. G.Don.

Nepal 99 532 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3600-3800m, June
Garw 2005 351 ergebnis
India Garhwal Patanathi 3800m, September

Description

Geum elatum is a perennial herb of the high Himalaya, distributed along the alpine and subalpine belt from Pakistan and Afghanistan eastward through India, Nepal, Bhutan and south-western China. GBIF aggregates some 366 occurrences, densest in Nepal and the Indian Himalaya. It grows in open alpine meadows, moist grassy slopes, rocky ledges and snow-melt flushes, typically between about 3000 and 4500 m. The populations imaged in West-Nepal at Churta-Khola (3600-3800 m, June) and in Indian Garhwal at Patanathi (3800 m, September) typify its preference for cool, humid turf near the upper limit of vegetation.

The plant arises from a stout, scaly rhizome bearing a basal rosette of pinnate to lyrate-pinnatifid leaves, the terminal leaflet conspicuously enlarged, reniform to orbicular and crenate-lobed. Flowering stems are erect to ascending, simple or sparingly branched, bearing one to several comparatively large, nodding to suberect golden-yellow flowers. These have five spreading obovate petals, five reflexed sepals alternating with small epicalyx segments, numerous stamens, and many free carpels on a hairy receptacle. In fruit the styles elongate into persistent, often plumose or hooked awns, forming a globose head of achenes adapted to epizoochorous dispersal.

Geum elatum belongs to a Himalayan complex sometimes segregated under Acomastylis or Sieversia, and varieties (notably var. leiocarpum) have been recognised on indumentum and style characters. Its nodding, large-flowered habit and montane ecology distinguish it from lowland Geum species. As a widespread, locally common alpine perennial it is of no immediate conservation concern, though potentially sensitive to grazing and climate-driven upward shifts of the alpine zone.

Author: Wall ex. G.Don. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, monograph of the genus Geum (Gajewski)

Rosaceae

Geum macrosepalum

by GP Jürgens

Ludlow

BhutanPG2011 231
Bhutan Tsochenchen 3800m, July

Description

Geum macrosepalum Ludlow is a high-alpine rosaceous herb of the Eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, India and Bhutan (gbif_countries: CN, IN, BT) with only 20 occurrences in GBIF, marking it as a narrowly distributed mountain endemic. It grows in open alpine meadows, moist turf, rocky slopes and seepage ground, typically above about 3500 m. The illustrated plant from Tsochenchen in Bhutan at 3800 m, in July, captures it flowering at the height of the summer growing season in the cool, humid alpine belt of the eastern ranges.

It is a perennial herb arising from a stout rhizome, forming a basal rosette of pinnately compound, lyrate leaves with a large terminal leaflet and smaller lateral pairs, the margins toothed and the surfaces softly hairy. The flowering stems bear few reduced cauline leaves. The flowers, often solitary or few, are notable for their enlarged sepals, recorded in the epithet macrosepalum, which subtend yellow petals; an epicalyx is present outside the calyx. Numerous stamens and carpels occupy the receptacle, and the achenes mature with persistent styles that may be hooked or plumose, aiding dispersal, a feature linking the species to the segregate Acomastylis under which it has been treated.

The taxon has been placed in Acomastylis (Geum macrosepalum being the basis of Acomastylis macrosepala), reflecting the disputed generic limits within the Geum–Sieversia–Acomastylis complex; molecular work supports a broadly circumscribed Geum. Given its limited range across the eastern alpine zone, the species is of biogeographic interest as a regional endemic, and its small number of records suggests it warrants conservation attention.

Author: Ludlow · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Rosaceae), Flora of Bhutan, Smedmark & Eriksson phylogenetic study of Geum and allies

Rosaceae

Geum sikkimense

by GP Jürgens

Prain

BhutanPG2011 676 01
Bhutan Luksur, 4700m July

Description

Geum sikkimense is a high-alpine avens of the eastern Himalaya, recorded in GBIF (a modest 47 occurrences) from Nepal, Bhutan and India. It is a plant of cold, open, high-elevation habitats, growing on alpine meadows, moist turf, screes and rocky slopes generally between about 4000 and 4800 m, flowering during the short summer monsoon window. The photographed plant from Luksur in Bhutan at 4700 m in July exemplifies its occurrence near the upper limit of vascular plant growth, where it persists in stony, snowmelt-watered ground.

It is a low, tufted perennial herb arising from a stout, woody rhizome clothed in old leaf bases. The leaves are mostly basal and lyrate-pinnate, with a large rounded, crenate-toothed terminal lobe and progressively smaller lateral leaflets, the surfaces hairy and the petiole long. The flowering stems are erect and bear one to few flowers; each flower has five green sepals (often with alternating epicalyx segments) and five spreading, obovate, yellow petals surrounding numerous stamens and carpels. The fruit is a head of dry achenes, each tipped with a persistent style that elongates into a hooked or feathery awn aiding epizoochorous dispersal.

Geum belongs to tribe Colurieae of the Rosaceae, allied to Sieversia and Acomastylis, genera with which several Himalayan high-alpine species have at times been associated. G. sikkimense is a narrow-range eastern Himalayan endemic adapted to the harsh, short growing season of the upper alpine zone. Given its limited known distribution and small number of records, it is poorly assessed, but its restriction to fragile high-altitude habitats makes it potentially vulnerable to climate-driven habitat contraction.

Author: Prain · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Gajurel et al. studies on Himalayan Rosaceae, Smedmark revision of Colurieae

Orchideaceae

Goodyera fusca

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 457 K631.2
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3900m August

Description

Goodyera fusca is a terrestrial orchid of the higher Himalaya, ranging through Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar (NP, CN, BT, IN, MM), with about 101 recorded occurrences. It grows in cool, shaded humus among mossy rocks, in subalpine Rhododendron and conifer thickets and at the upper forest margin, generally in the upper temperate to subalpine zone. The plant illustrated was found in the Chopta Valley of Sikkim at 3900 m in August, an elevation and late-summer flowering period typical of the species, where it occupies damp, sheltered pockets of leaf litter and bryophyte cover beneath open scrub near the treeline.

It is a small, erect herb arising from a creeping, fleshy, few-noded rhizome rooting at the nodes. The leaves are few and clustered toward the stem base, ovate to elliptic, somewhat fleshy, and in many populations marked with the reticulate veining characteristic of the 'jewel orchids'. The inflorescence is an erect, glandular-pubescent spike bearing a secund to spiralled series of small, dull brownish to greenish flowers, each subtended by a lanceolate bract. The dorsal sepal and petals are connivent to form a hood over the column, the lateral sepals spreading, and the saccate, concave lip lacks a free spur. The fruit is a small, erect, ribbed capsule releasing dust-fine seeds.

Goodyera (subtribe Goodyerinae, tribe Cranichideae of the Orchidaceae) is a chiefly Asian genus of forest-floor orchids whose germination and establishment depend on association with mycorrhizal fungi. The small, drab, nectar-bearing flowers are pollinated by small bees and other insects, and the minute seeds are wind-dispersed. As an obligately mycotrophic forest understorey orchid, G. fusca is vulnerable to disturbance of its humus-rich habitat, though across its wide Himalayan-Chinese range it is not currently regarded as threatened.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Genera Orchidacearum (Goodyerinae)

Orchideaceae

Goodyera hemsleyana

by G & P Jürgens

King & Pantl.

Bhutan2012 347
Bhutan Dochu-La 3000m, September

Description

Goodyera hemsleyana is a terrestrial orchid of the cool, humid temperate forests of the eastern Himalaya and adjoining southwestern China. Documented occurrences (21 GBIF records) span India, Nepal, China, Bhutan and Myanmar, following the moist mid- to upper-montane belt of the Sino-Himalayan region. The species favours the deep, mossy humus and leaf litter of shaded broadleaved and mixed conifer forest, typically between about 2500 and 3500 m. The illustrated material was gathered at Dochu-La in western Bhutan at roughly 3000 m in September, a pass clothed in cloud forest where rhododendron and fir provide the shade and atmospheric moisture this orchid requires.

The plant is a small, creeping geophyte arising from a slender, fleshy, decumbent rhizome that roots at the lower nodes. The leaves are few, gathered toward the base, ovate to elliptic, and characteristically marked with a fine reticulate venation that distinguishes the 'jewel orchid' alliance. The erect inflorescence is a pubescent scape bearing a rather lax, secund raceme of small white to greenish-white flowers. Each flower shows the connivent dorsal sepal and petals forming a hood over the column, spreading lateral sepals, and a saccate, concave lip with an incurved, often shortly bifid apex; the ovary is glandular-hairy and twisted.

Goodyera is a large, near-cosmopolitan genus within tribe Cranichideae, subtribe Goodyerinae, and G. hemsleyana belongs to the assemblage of Himalayan species described from the King & Pantling collections. Like its congeners it is mycoheterotrophic in establishment, dependent on rhizoctonia-type fungal symbionts in the forest humus, which restricts it to undisturbed old-growth stands. Though not formally assessed as threatened, its reliance on intact mossy forest makes it sensitive to logging and grazing pressure across its range.

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

Malvaceae

Gossypium hirsutum

by G & P Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 1230
Bhutan Trashigang 1150m, October
Bhutan2012 1231
Bhutan Trashigang 1150m, October

Description

Gossypium hirsutum, Upland cotton, is native to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean but is now pantropical and warm-temperate in cultivation, accounting for the great majority of the world's cotton crop. Its 25,000-plus georeferenced records reflect this near-cosmopolitan distribution, with concentrations in the United States (US) and Mexico (MX) and naturalised or cultivated occurrences across Brazil, Uzbekistan, Australia, India, China and many other countries. In the Himalayan region it is a lowland cultigen and escape rather than a wild element; the plant photographed at Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at about 1150 m in October represents such warm subtropical valley cultivation, well below the montane flora. It thrives in hot, sunny, frost-free lowlands on deep, well-drained loams.

It is an erect, somewhat woody annual or short-lived perennial herb to shrub, with branching stems bearing scattered hairs and dark glandular dots. The leaves are alternate, broadly cordate and palmately three- to five-lobed, the lobes ovate-triangular and acuminate, with a basal nectary on the midrib beneath. The showy flowers are solitary and axillary, subtended by an epicalyx of three large, deeply incised, cordate bracts; the corolla is creamy white to pale yellow, often turning pink with age. The fruit is a three- to five-locular ovoid capsule (boll) that dehisces to reveal seeds embedded in copious white lint of elongated epidermal seed-hairs, the cotton fibre of commerce.

Gossypium (Malvaceae) is an economically pre-eminent genus whose allotetraploid New World cottons, including G. hirsutum, arose from hybridisation between Old and New World diploid lineages. The species is the foundation of global textile agriculture and a model for polyploid genomics. As a fully domesticated crop it has no conservation concern, though its wild and feral relatives are of interest for germplasm conservation and breeding.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Fryxell monographic studies of Gossypium and the Malvaceae

Malvaceae

Grewia serrulata

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2014 718
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, May

Description

Grewia serrulata is a shrub or small tree of the Indomalayan tropics, distributed through India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Thailand, with around 382 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of warm subtropical to tropical hill forest, growing in open woodland, forest margins, scrub, ravine slopes and along roadsides and clearings, generally on well-drained ground in the foothill and lower montane belt. The record from Wangdi Phodrang in Bhutan at about 2000 m in May illustrates its occurrence in the warm temperate to subtropical zone of the eastern Himalayan foothills, flowering in the pre-monsoon season.

The plant is a much-branched shrub or small tree with young branchlets bearing stellate pubescence. The alternate, simple leaves are ovate to oblong-lanceolate with an asymmetric, rounded to subcordate base, an acuminate apex, a finely serrulate margin (as the epithet denotes) and prominent palmate basal venation, the lower surface often paler and stellate-hairy. The flowers are borne in small axillary or leaf-opposed cymes; each has five sepals, five spreading yellow to whitish petals each with a basal nectariferous gland, and a prominent central androgynophore bearing numerous stamens around a superior ovary. The fruit is a small, lobed, fleshy drupe, becoming reddish to purplish-black at maturity and bearing few stones.

Described by de Candolle, Grewia serrulata belongs to a large genus formerly placed in Tiliaceae but now subsumed, following molecular phylogenetics, within the broadly circumscribed Malvaceae (subfamily Grewioideae); the input family is retained accordingly. The genus is well known for its tough bast fibres and edible drupes, and several species are gathered for fruit, fodder and fibre. As a widespread, adaptable component of secondary and disturbed forest, G. serrulata is not regarded as threatened, though locally valued for its useful products.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of British India, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Bayer & Kubitzki treatment of Malvaceae