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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

Kaempferia rotunda

by GP Jürgens

L.

Nepal 97 410 P792
Nepal Tashigaon 3000m May
Nepal 2001 173 ergebnis ergebnis
East-Nepal Sabha-Khola 2100m, April

Description

Kaempferia rotunda L. is a tuberous, rhizomatous herb of the ginger family native to tropical and subtropical Asia and very widely cultivated, so that its GBIF record (586 occurrences) spans India, Myanmar, China, Thailand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines alongside many introduced localities in the Neotropics, North America and the Pacific. In the Himalayan foothills it grows in warm, shaded forest, scrub and disturbed ground; it was recorded in eastern Nepal at Sabha-Khola near 2100 m in April and at Tashigaon around 3000 m in May, the latter elevation being unusually high and probably reflecting sheltered, low-frost microsites or local cultivation.

The plant arises from a clustered, aromatic rhizome bearing fleshy tuberous roots. The leaves, two to four per shoot, are oblong-lanceolate, often handsomely variegated with dark and silvery-green zones above and purplish beneath, and appear after or with flowering. The inflorescence is hysteranthous, emerging directly from the rhizome at ground level before the leaves expand: a cluster of short-lived flowers with white, narrowly oblong corolla lobes, two petaloid white staminodes, and a conspicuous, deeply bilobed lilac to violet labellum. The fruit is a three-valved capsule, though propagation is largely vegetative.

Kaempferia rotunda is the type species of its genus and is grown ornamentally as 'peacock ginger' and used in traditional medicine across South and Southeast Asia, its rhizomes valued for fragrant essential oils. Its enormous naturalised range testifies to long human movement of the species. Pollination of the showy ephemeral flowers is by bees and other insects attracted to the labellar nectar guides, while persistence in cultivation buffers it against any wild conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Zingiberaceae monograph (Larsen & Larsen; K. Schumann Zingiberaceae)

Crassulaceae

Kalanchoe integra

by G & P Jürgens

Kuntze

Bhutan2014 260
Bhutan Karu-Chu 1800m, May

Description

Kalanchoe integra is a succulent herb of broad palaeotropical and introduced distribution, recorded by GBIF (around 902 occurrences) across tropical and subtropical Asia and beyond, including Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Thailand, China, Japan, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan, as well as introduced or cultivated populations in the Americas and Europe. It grows on warm, dry, rocky slopes, open hillsides, walls, ledges and disturbed ground, favouring sunny, well-drained sites in the foothill and lower montane zones. The collection from Karu-Chu in Bhutan at about 1800 m in May marks a Himalayan foothill occurrence and reflects its preference for relatively low, warm elevations and its spring flowering at the onset of the growing season.

The plant is an erect, glabrous, fleshy perennial or biennial herb with a stout, often simple stem. The succulent leaves are opposite and decussate, the lower ones petiolate and obovate to oblong with a crenate or shallowly toothed margin, the upper leaves becoming sessile and sometimes pinnately lobed. The inflorescence is a large, terminal, much-branched corymbose cyme of numerous pendent, tubular flowers. Each flower has a fused, somewhat inflated tubular calyx and a longer tubular corolla in shades of yellow to orange or reddish, with four spreading lobes. There are eight stamens inserted on the corolla tube, and the four free carpels mature into many-seeded follicles.

Described under the combination by Kuntze, Kalanchoe integra belongs to a large Old World genus of the Crassulaceae noted for crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), an adaptation enabling water conservation in seasonally dry habitats. The genus is taxonomically intricate, many names being confused within the K. integra-K. laciniata-K. spathulata complex. The species is used in traditional medicine in parts of its range and is sometimes cultivated. Being widespread, weedy and tolerant of disturbance, it is not of conservation concern.

Author: Kuntze · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Raymond-Hamet revision of Kalanchoe

Apiaceae

Keraymonia cortiformis

by GP Jürgens

Cauwet & S.B.Malla

Bhutan2012 244
Bhutan Shele-La, 3900m September

Description

Keraymonia cortiformis is a high-alpine umbellifer of the eastern Himalaya, restricted to Nepal, Bhutan and adjacent China, where GBIF records only about 30 occurrences, reflecting its narrow range and limited collection. It is a plant of the upper subalpine to alpine zone, growing on open stony slopes, screes, rock crevices and short alpine turf above the treeline, typically between roughly 3500 and 4500 m. The image from Shele-La in Bhutan at about 3900 m in September captures it in a characteristic exposed high-pass habitat, where late-season fruiting plants persist among cushion vegetation and frost-disturbed gravels.

It is a low, tufted perennial herb arising from a stout, often woody rootstock crowned by fibrous remains of old leaf bases. The stems are short, decumbent to ascending and few. Leaves are mostly basal, petiolate with sheathing bases, the blades one- to two-pinnate or ternately divided into small, crowded, oblong to cuneate segments, somewhat fleshy and glabrous to minutely scabrid. The inflorescence is a compact compound umbel with few short, unequal rays, subtended by bracts and bracteoles; flowers are small with white to pinkish petals. The fruit is an ovoid to oblong schizocarp, the mericarps dorsally compressed with prominent ribs and vittae characteristic of the genus.

Keraymonia is a small Himalayan genus segregated from broader concepts within the Apiaceae on fruit and habit characters; this species was described by Cauwet and S.B. Malla. Its cushion-forming, taprooted habit and reduced umbels are typical adaptations to cold, wind-exposed alpine environments with short growing seasons. Owing to its restricted distribution and small known population, it is of biogeographic interest as a high-elevation endemic, and warrants monitoring given the vulnerability of narrowly ranging alpine taxa to climatic warming.

Author: Cauwet & S.B.Malla · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Apiaceae), Pimenov & Leonov Genera of the Umbelliferae

Malvaceae

Kydia glabrescens

by G & P Jürgens

Mast.

Bhutan2012 1294
Bhutan Trashigang 1720m, October
Bhutan2012 1295
Bhutan Trashigang 1720m, October

Description

Kydia glabrescens is a small tree of the eastern Himalayan and Indo-Chinese region, recorded from China, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, Bhutan, India and Myanmar, with about 140 georeferenced occurrences. It occurs in subtropical and warm-temperate broadleaved forest, secondary woodland and forest margins at low to moderate elevations. The individual documented near Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at about 1720 m in October illustrates its mid-elevation habitat, flowering and fruiting in autumn on well-drained slopes within and at the edges of mixed hill forest.

The plant is a deciduous tree with grey bark whose young parts are stellate-tomentose but become more glabrescent with age, a feature underlying its epithet. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to suborbicular, palmately three- to five-veined and often shallowly lobed, with crenate-dentate margins. The flowers are borne in terminal and axillary panicles and are subtended by conspicuous epicalyx bracts that enlarge and become wing-like in fruit, a diagnostic feature of the genus; the small five-petalled corolla is white to pale pink, the stamens united into a staminal column typical of the Malvaceae. The fruit is a small capsule subtended by the accrescent, persistent bracts that aid wind dispersal.

Kydia is a small Asian genus traditionally placed in the Malvaceae (subfamily Grewioideae or related tribes in the broadly circumscribed family), distinguished by its enlarged fruiting epicalyx and dioecious or polygamous breeding system. The timber is used locally and the mucilaginous bark has minor traditional uses. Reasonably widespread through the eastern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, K. glabrescens is not considered threatened.

Author: Mast. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of British India, Tang, Gilbert & Dorr's account of Malvaceae

Asteraceae

Lactuca dolichophylla 

by G & P Jürgens

Kitam.

Garw 2005 68 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Valley of flowers 3200m, September

Description

Lactuca dolichophylla is a Himalayan and Central Asian perennial herb distributed through the Indian Himalaya, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, southern China, Afghanistan, Russia and Myanmar, documented from a modest number of georeferenced collections. It is a plant of the subalpine and alpine zone, growing on open grassy slopes, herb-rich meadows, forest clearings and stony banks. The photographed material is from the Valley of Flowers in Garhwal, India, at about 3200 m in September, a celebrated high-montane meadow habitat where the species flowers in the late post-monsoon season.

The plant is an erect perennial herb with a leafy, often glaucous stem exuding milky latex when cut. The leaves are elongate and narrow, as the epithet 'dolichophylla' (long-leaved) implies, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, entire to runcinate-lobed, with the upper leaves sessile and often clasping. The capitula are arranged in a lax paniculate-corymbose synflorescence; each head is ligulate, with an imbricate cylindrical involucre and several blue to bluish-purple or violet ray florets, a colour characteristic of the Himalayan blue-flowered lettuces. The fruit is a flattened, ribbed achene (cypsela) narrowed into a beak and crowned by a pappus of simple white capillary bristles.

Lactuca belongs to the tribe Cichorieae of Asteraceae, the dandelion-and-lettuce alliance with milky latex and ligulate florets. The blue-flowered Himalayan species, sometimes segregated under Cicerbita or Mulgedium, form a taxonomically intricate group, and this taxon was described by Kitamura. Wind-dispersed by its pappus, L. dolichophylla is a characteristic component of moist alpine meadows and is not regarded as threatened.

Author: Kitam. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Kitamura's studies of Himalayan Cichorieae (Compositae)

Plantaginaceae

Lagotis kunawurensis

by GP Jürgens

(Royle ex Benth.) Rupr.

Sikkim2003 197 P275
Sikkim Dzongri 4100m 08.2003
Nepal 99 650 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 5000m, July
Nepal 99 648 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 5000m, July
Nepal 99 662 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 5000m, July
Garh 07 156 ergebnis
Garh 07 160 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kinkhola 3550m, June

Description

Lagotis kunawurensis is a low alpine herb of the high Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (about 116 occurrences) from Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bhutan, tracing the alpine belt from the western to the eastern part of the range. It is a plant of cold, open, high-elevation ground: short turf, stony slopes, moist alpine meadows, moraines and snow-flush margins, typically from 3500 m to well above 5000 m. The collections cited for the image span this full amplitude, from Dzongri in Sikkim at about 4100 m, to Kinkhola in Garhwal at 3550 m in June, up to the Kagmara-La in West Nepal at around 5000 m in July, the last representing one of the highest zones colonised by flowering plants in the region.

It is a small, fleshy, glabrous perennial arising from a stout rhizome or caudex with thickened roots. The leaves are mostly basal, long-petiolate, with ovate to oblong, somewhat succulent blades that are entire or shallowly crenate-toothed. The flowering stems are short and stout, the inflorescence a dense terminal spike or head of small bracteate flowers. The corolla is two-lipped (bilabiate), blue to violet or purplish, with the upper lip entire or notched and a lower lip of one to three lobes; there are typically two stamens. The fruit is a small drupe-like or two-seeded structure rather than the dry dehiscent capsule of many relatives, a feature distinctive of the genus.

Lagotis, with its concentration of species across the high mountains of Central Asia, the Himalaya and the Tibetan plateau, is now placed in Plantaginaceae following the molecular dismantling of the old Scrophulariaceae. The cushion-like, fleshy habit, short stature and early flowering are classic adaptations to the brief, cold, wind-exposed alpine growing season. Several Lagotis species are used in Tibetan and Himalayan ethnomedicine. As a widespread high-elevation specialist L. kunawurensis is not of conservation concern, though such strictly alpine taxa are intrinsically vulnerable to the upslope compression of habitat under climate warming.

Author: (Royle ex Benth.) Rupr. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, Hong Monograph of the Subtribe Lagotidinae (Scrophulariaceae)

Phrymaceae

Lancea tibetica 

by G & P Jürgens

Hook. f. & Thomson

Nepal 99 681 ergebnis
West-Nepal, Pungmo-Khola 4700m, July

Description

Lancea tibetica Hook.f. & Thomson is a low, perennial herb of the high Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountains, recorded by GBIF from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia and Pakistan. It is a true high-alpine plant of open turf, gravelly and sandy meadows, riverine flats and grazed grassland, generally between about 3,000 and 5,000 m. The July collection from the Pungmo Khola valley in west Nepal at 4,700 m exemplifies its preference for moist alpine swards close to the upper limit of vascular plant growth, where it grows in short, frost-prone vegetation alongside other cushion and rosette herbs of the Trans-Himalayan zone.

The plant is a small, nearly stemless perennial arising from a creeping rhizome and forming low tufts seldom more than a few centimetres tall. The leaves are crowded in a basal rosette, spathulate to oblanceolate, thick, entire or slightly toothed and glabrous. The conspicuous flowers are borne almost at ground level among the leaves; the corolla is deep violet-blue to purple, tubular below and expanded into a two-lipped limb, the lower lip three-lobed and the throat often paler or marked. The fruit is a fleshy, berry-like capsule containing numerous seeds, an unusual feature among its relatives.

Formerly placed in Scrophulariaceae, Lancea is now classified in Phrymaceae following molecular phylogenetic studies, forming with the related Mazus a distinctive Asian lineage. The genus comprises only two species, making L. tibetica of considerable systematic interest as a characteristic endemic of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau flora. Well adapted to cold, high-altitude grassland, it serves as an indicator of intact alpine meadow ecosystems increasingly affected by grazing pressure and climate change.

Author: Hook. f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Nepal, Beardsley & Olmstead: Phylogeny of Phrymaceae (American Journal of Botany)

Urticaceae

Laportea bulbifera

by G & P Jürgens

(Siebold & Zucc.) Wedd

Bhutan2012 855
Bhutan Nangsephal 2800m, October

Description

Laportea bulbifera is a widespread perennial nettle ranging across East and South Asia, with GBIF documenting more than 4500 occurrences from Japan, China, Korea, the Russian Far East, the Himalaya, Taiwan and into Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. It colonises moist forest margins, ravines, streamsides and shaded clearings, often forming patches on humus-rich soils in temperate and subtropical woodland. The photographed population grows in Bhutan at Nangsephal around 2800 m, still in flower or fruit in October; the species occurs broadly from the lowlands to roughly 3000 m, thriving where moisture and partial shade coincide.

The plant produces erect, often unbranched stems from a creeping rootstock, the herbage armed with stinging hairs delivering an irritant on contact. Distinctive bulbils (gemmae) form in the upper leaf axils, giving the epithet bulbifera and providing a means of vegetative propagation. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, acuminate, serrate-margined and three-nerved from the base, on slender petioles. Small unisexual flowers are borne in axillary, paniculate cymes, the female inflorescences asymmetric with the achene set obliquely on an enlarged pedicel; the dry, flattened achene is the fruit.

Laportea belongs to the Urticeae, the tribe of true stinging nettles, and L. bulbifera is among its most morphologically variable and geographically far-flung members, prompting recognition of several infraspecific forms across its enormous range. The axillary bulbils represent an effective clonal strategy in disturbed, shaded habitats. The species is abundant and of least concern; in parts of its range young shoots are gathered as a cooked vegetable and the fibrous stems occasionally used locally.

Author: (Siebold & Zucc.) Wedd · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Urticaceae monograph (Friis / Chen)

Pinaceae

Larix griffithii

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Bhutan2014 610
Bhutan Phobjika 2810, May
Bh2008 266 P418
Bhutan Tumchinching-La 3760m, April

Description

Larix griffithii, the Sikkim or Himalayan larch, is a deciduous conifer of the eastern Himalaya, native to China (Xizang), Bhutan, India (Sikkim) and Nepal; GBIF lists 525 occurrences, including many cultivated specimens in temperate arboreta abroad. In the wild it forms open montane to subalpine forests, often near the treeline on rocky slopes and moraines, generally between about 2800 and 4100 m. The trees illustrated were photographed in Bhutan at Phobjika (2810 m) in May and at the Tumchinching-La pass (3760 m) in April, the latter near its upper altitudinal limit.

It is a medium-sized deciduous tree with a conical crown and long, often pendulous branchlets. The soft, needle-like leaves are borne singly on long shoots and in dense rosette-like clusters on short, knob-like spur shoots; they are bright green, flushing in spring and turning golden-yellow before falling in autumn, an unusual habit among Himalayan conifers. The pendulous seed cones are oblong-cylindrical with conspicuous, exserted, often reflexed bracts that exceed the seed scales, a key diagnostic character; the winged seeds are wind-dispersed when the cones open.

Larix griffithii belongs to Pinaceae and is the principal larch of the eastern Himalaya, characteristically associated with Abies, Picea and rhododendron scrub at the upper forest limit. Its long-exserted cone bracts readily distinguish it from other larches. The wood is used locally for timber and fuel, and the tree's graceful weeping form has led to its cultivation in temperate collections, accounting for the wide scatter of records. Restricted in natural range but locally frequent, it faces pressure from logging, fire and grazing in the fragile treeline ecotone.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Conifers of the World, Farjon A Handbook of the World's Conifers

Urticaceae

Lecanthus peduncularis

by G & P Jürgens

(Royle) Wedd.

Bhutan2015 105
Bhutan Galephug 600m, October

Description

Lecanthus peduncularis is a widespread herb of tropical and subtropical Asia and beyond, ranging from the Himalaya (Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan) through China, Taiwan, Japan and South-East Asia to Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and parts of Africa (Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia); its very numerous GBIF records (over 2150) reflect this broad distribution. It grows in moist, shady places in evergreen and mixed forest, on damp banks, by streams, on dripping rocks and at forest margins, from the lowlands up to mid-montane elevations of around 2500 m. The photographed plant from Galephug in southern Bhutan at 600 m in October is typical of its warm, humid foothill habitat.

It is a soft, succulent perennial or annual herb with weak, ascending to creeping stems, glabrous to sparsely hairy and rooting at the lower nodes. The opposite leaves are ovate to elliptic, membranous, with a serrate to crenate-dentate margin, an acuminate apex and conspicuous cystoliths, borne on slender petioles. The minute, unisexual flowers are crowded in flat, disc-like receptacular heads subtended by an involucre and carried on long, slender axillary peduncles, the long peduncle giving the species its epithet. The fruit is a small, compressed, ovoid achene.

The small genus Lecanthus belongs to the Urticaceae and is allied to Pilea and Elatostema, distinguished by its long-stalked, involucrate flower-heads. As a shade- and moisture-loving understorey herb of wide ecological tolerance, L. peduncularis is common and not of conservation concern; it has minor local use as a potherb and in traditional remedies across its Asian range.

Author: (Royle) Wedd. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Urticaceae revision (Friis & Wilmot-Dear)