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.

Primulaceae

Androsace globifera

by G & P Jürgens

Duby

BhutanPG2011 669 scaled
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Thitha-Tso, 4300m July
Sikkim2004 163 G276
Sikkim/India Singalila 4100m May
Nepal 99 138 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3800m, June

Description

Androsace globifera is a high-alpine cushion-forming perennial distributed along the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (103 occurrences) from Nepal, India, Bhutan and adjacent Tibetan China. It occupies open, often wind-exposed alpine turf, gravel slopes, moraine margins and the rocky surrounds of glacial tarns, typically between 3800 and 4500 m. The documented gatherings illustrate this range well: dense colonies were found beside Thitha-Tso on the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail in Bhutan at 4300 m in July, on the Singalila ridge of Sikkim at 4100 m in May, and south of Rara Lake in West Nepal at 3800 m in June, flowering as the snow recedes.

The plant forms compact, hemispherical cushions or low mats built from numerous crowded, columnar shoots clothed in persistent, imbricate, withered leaf-remains. The leaves are small, sessile, oblong to spathulate, and gathered into dense terminal rosettes, their margins ciliate with simple and branched hairs. Solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate flowers nestle among the leaves; the calyx is campanulate and lobed to about the middle, and the rotate corolla is white to pink with a yellow throat, the five obovate lobes spreading from a short tube. The fruit is a small globose capsule that splits by five valves to release angular seeds.

A member of the cushion-forming androsaces, the species is diagnosed by its globular, tightly packed habit and short-tubed flowers. Ecologically it is a pioneer of frost-disturbed, well-drained substrates, the cushion architecture buffering temperature extremes and trapping wind-blown detritus. Though locally frequent and not currently threatened, such narrowly stenothermic alpines are sensitive to warming and shifting snow regimes.

Author: Duby · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Smith & Lowe Androsace monograph (Genus Androsace)

Primulaceae

Androsace hookeriana

by GP Jürgens

Klatt

Sikkim2011 54
Sikkim Vista-valley 3800m, June
BhutanPG2011 784 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3800m June
Bh09 175 G200
Bhutan Labana, 4000m June

Description

Androsace hookeriana is an eastern Himalayan rock-jasmine recorded in GBIF from Nepal, China, Bhutan and India across 120 occurrences. It grows in moist alpine meadows, grassy slopes, seepage flushes and among rocks, generally between 3500 and 4300 m. The cited collections span Sikkim's Vista valley at about 3800 m, Chele-La in Bhutan at 3800 m, and Labana in Bhutan at 4000 m, all flowering in June, indicating an early-summer alpine species that exploits damp, freshly snow-freed turf. Named for the botanist J. D. Hooker, it is a characteristic component of high eastern Himalayan herbfields.

It is a small rosette-forming perennial, the basal leaves spathulate to oblanceolate, narrowed to the base, with a sparse to dense covering of fine hairs. From the rosette rises a slender, hairy scape a few centimetres to about 15 cm tall, bearing a terminal umbel of several flowers subtended by an involucre of narrow bracts; the pedicels are hairy. Each flower has a campanulate, hairy calyx divided to about the middle and a salverform white to pale pink corolla with a yellow or pinkish eye and five rounded lobes. The fruit is a small, valvate capsule containing a few angular seeds.

As a member of Androsace (Primulaceae), the species belongs to a genus of predominantly arctic-alpine herbs richly diversified across the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau. Its scapose, umbellate habit aligns it with the meadow-dwelling rosette species rather than the tight cushion-formers of higher scree. Pollination is by small dipterans and other insects drawn to the eye-ring, and seeds are dispersed by gravity and wind. It is locally frequent and of no recognised conservation concern.

Author: Klatt · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe Monograph of Androsace

Primulaceae

Androsace lehmannii

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex Duby

Nepal 99 304 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 4200m, June
Nepal 99 802 ergebnis
West-Nepal Baga-La-Phedi 4500m, July
Sikkim2003 304 G425
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4200m, August
BhutanPG2011 451 scaled
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Warrthang-Tso, 4400m July

Description

Androsace lehmannii Wall. ex Duby is a cushion-forming alpine of the high Himalaya, distributed through Nepal, India, China and Bhutan, with outlying records reported from further across temperate Asia. It is documented from West-Nepal at Kalmura (4200 m) and Baga-La-Phedi (4500 m), from Sikkim at Saniti Lake (4200 m) and from Bhutan along the Ludlow-Sherriff trail near Warrthang-Tso (4400 m), flowering from June to August. The species inhabits open alpine turf, rocky slopes, moraine and gravelly flats, typically between 4000 and 5000 m, where it forms low cushions adapted to wind exposure, intense radiation and a short, cool growing season. Its roughly 158 GBIF records mark it as a genuine high-alpine specialist.

The plant builds a dense, hemispherical cushion of crowded rosettes borne on branched, columnar shoots packed with the marcescent remains of old leaves. The living leaves are small, oblong to spathulate, entire, often ciliate-margined and frequently bearing whitish hairs that reduce water loss and radiation damage. Solitary, almost sessile flowers nestle among the leaves, each with a campanulate calyx and a salver-shaped, five-lobed corolla in white to pale pink, the throat marked by a contrasting yellow or pinkish eye. The fruit is a small, few-seeded capsule dehiscing by valves.

Androsace lehmannii belongs to the section of cushion androsaces (allied to sect. Aretia), a growth form that has evolved repeatedly in cold, high-mountain floras as a thermal and mechanical adaptation, the compact canopy trapping warmth and moisture within the cushion. Such plants are slow-growing, long-lived and pioneer-like on unstable substrates. Though not currently threatened, cushion androsaces are recognised as climate-sensitive sentinels, vulnerable to warming, altered snow cover and trampling along increasingly frequented high-altitude routes.

Author: Wall. ex Duby · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Androsace monograph (Smith & Lowe)

Primulaceae

Androsace rhizomatosa

by GP Jürgens

Hand.-Mazz.

BhutanPG2011 362
Bhutan Jule-Tso, 4400m June

Description

Androsace rhizomatosa is a high-alpine cushion plant of the eastern Himalaya, known in GBIF from a single Bhutanese record, an emphatic indication of its rarity and very restricted distribution. It is a plant of exposed alpine screes, rocky ridges, gravelly flushes and turf at the upper limits of vegetation. The collection at Jule-Tso in Bhutan at about 4400 m in June is consistent with the cold, windswept, well-drained high-alpine habitat the species occupies, flowering in early summer as the snow retreats from these stony slopes well above the treeline.

The species is a small perennial herb of the genus that, as its epithet rhizomatosa indicates, spreads by slender rhizomes or stolons to form loose mats or low cushions of leaf rosettes rather than tight hemispherical domes. The leaves are small, narrow and crowded into basal rosettes, often grey-green and clothed with fine hairs that reduce desiccation and ultraviolet damage. The flowers are borne singly or in small few-flowered umbels on short scapes; each has a salver-shaped corolla with five spreading lobes, white to pale pink with a contrasting yellow or pinkish eye at the constricted throat, and the stamens inserted within the corolla tube. The fruit is a small few-seeded capsule.

Androsace (Primulaceae) is a large Holarctic genus richly developed in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, where rosette- and cushion-forming species are repeatedly adapted to cold, arid, high-irradiance alpine conditions; A. rhizomatosa belongs to the rhizomatous, mat-forming element rather than the dense-cushion section. Its compact growth conserves heat and moisture, and pollination is by alpine insects. Given that it is documented from essentially a single locality and confined to a fragile high-alpine niche, the species is of considerable conservation concern and merits dedicated field survey and assessment.

Author: Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Smith and Lowe Androsaces, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Primulaceae

Androsace sarmentosa

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Sikkim 2006 12 ergebnis
India West-Bengal Tonglu 3100m, May

Description

Androsace sarmentosa is a mat-forming alpine herb of the Himalaya, well represented in GBIF with 514 occurrences across Nepal, India, China, Pakistan and Bhutan, supplemented by abundant cultivated records from Europe and North America, where it is a popular rock-garden plant. It grows on open grassy slopes, rocky banks and the margins of subalpine and alpine meadows, typically in well-drained, sunny situations. It was recorded at Tonglu in West Bengal, India, at about 3100 m in May, an elevation and season at which the spreading cushions flower freely after snowmelt on the Singalila ridge.

The plant spreads by slender, leafy stolons (sarmentose runners, as the epithet indicates) that root at the tips to form new rosettes, building loose, expanding mats. Each rosette consists of obovate to spathulate leaves densely clothed in long, soft, silvery hairs, the young rosettes more woolly than the old. From the rosettes arise erect peduncles bearing a terminal umbel of flowers subtended by an involucre of bracts; each flower has a five-lobed calyx and a salverform corolla, pink to rose with a yellow then reddish eye at the constricted throat. The fruit is a small, few-seeded capsule.

Androsace (Primulaceae) is a genus of mostly arctic and alpine cushion and rosette plants centred on the mountains of central Asia, where the Himalaya holds many species. A. sarmentosa belongs to the stoloniferous, perennial section and is among the most ornamental and frequently cultivated of Himalayan androsaces. It is widespread and not of conservation concern, but as a characteristic component of subalpine turf it is of interest for studies of alpine cushion-plant biogeography and horticulture.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe monograph of Androsace

Primulaceae

Androsace strigillosa

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Sikkim2011 59
Sikkim Vista-valley 3800m, June

Description

Androsace strigillosa is a Himalayan rock-jasmine recorded in GBIF from Nepal, China, India and Bhutan across 294 occurrences. It is a plant of open subalpine and alpine slopes, meadows, forest clearings and rocky banks, generally between 3000 and 4200 m. The photographed individual was found in Sikkim's Vista valley at about 3800 m in June, when the early summer brings flowering on moist, well-drained turf shortly after snow-melt. Within the genus it is one of the taller, more robust species, favouring herb-rich grassland rather than extreme scree.

It is a rosette-forming perennial with a basal cluster of oblong-lanceolate to spathulate leaves narrowed to a winged base, the lamina toothed toward the apex and clothed, as the epithet implies, in a strigillose (short, stiff, appressed-bristly) indumentum. From the rosette arises a stout, hairy scape 10-30 cm tall terminating in an umbel of numerous flowers subtended by an involucre of bracts. Each flower has a campanulate, hairy calyx and a salverform pink to rose-purple corolla with a constricted, often yellow-eyed throat and five spreading lobes. The fruit is a small, few- to several-seeded globose capsule dehiscing by valves.

Androsace (Primulaceae) is a large genus of the northern temperate and arctic-alpine zones, well represented in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, where cushion and rosette forms dominate. As a comparatively large-leaved, scapose species, A. strigillosa illustrates the meadow-dwelling end of the genus's ecological range. Pollination is by small insects attracted to the contrasting eye-ring, and seeds are gravity- and wind-dispersed. It is locally common and of no conservation concern.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe Monograph of Androsace

Primulaceae

Androsace tapete 

by G & P Jürgens

Maxim.

Nepal 99 622 2 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 4550m, July

Description

Androsace tapete Maxim. is a cushion-forming rock-jasmine of the high Himalaya and Tibetan plateau, documented by some 579 records from China, Nepal, India and Bhutan. It is a true subnival specialist, growing on exposed gravelly and rocky slopes, screes, moraines and stony alpine flats, typically between about 4000 and 5500 m. The plant photographed at the Kagmara-La in West Nepal at 4550 m in July epitomises its habitat: a wind-blasted, intensely irradiated, frost-prone pass where it forms tight hemispherical cushions hugging the substrate.

The species is a compact, perennial, evergreen cushion plant built from densely packed columnar shoots, each terminating in a small rosette of imbricate, oblong-spathulate leaves clothed in long white hairs that trap warmth and reduce desiccation. Dead leaves are retained internally, packing the cushion into a firm dome (the epithet "tapete" meaning carpet). The flowers are solitary, sessile or nearly so among the rosette leaves, with a small gamopetalous corolla, the five lobes white to pink with a yellow or reddish eye, borne over a short tube. The fruit is a small few-seeded capsule largely enclosed within the persistent calyx.

Androsace tapete belongs to section Aretia (the aretioid cushion androsaces), a group whose extreme cushion architecture represents convergent adaptation to the cold, dry, high-radiation conditions of the world's highest vegetated terrain. The cushion modifies its own microclimate, ameliorating temperature and moisture and often facilitating other alpine species. Restricted to remote high-altitude habitats and slow-growing, such cushion plants are sensitive to climate warming and trampling, although A. tapete remains widespread and is not formally assessed.

Author: Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, monograph of Androsace (sect. Aretia), Smith & Lowe's cushion Androsace studies

Ranunculaceae

Anemonastrum demissum

by GP Jürgens

(Hook.f. & Thomson) Holub

Bh09 114 G203
Bhutan Chele-La, 3500m June
Bh09 159 G282
Bhutan Chele-La, 4000m June
Nepal 95 173 P282 ergebnis
Nepal Rupien La 3850m October
Bhutan2012 273
Bhutan Dochu-La 3500m, September

Description

An alpine anemone of the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, recorded from China, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Pakistan, with around 1600 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of open alpine meadows, grassy slopes, rocky pastures and scrub margins, generally between about 3000 and 4500 m. The featured collections come from several high passes, including Bhutan's Chele-La at 3500 to 4000 m in June, the Dochu-La at 3500 m in September, and Nepal's Rupien La at 3850 m in October, illustrating a long flowering and fruiting season across windswept high-elevation habitats.

The species is a tufted perennial arising from a stout, often woody rootstock crowned with fibrous leaf remnants. The basal leaves are long-petiolate and palmately three- to five-divided, the segments further lobed and toothed and clothed, like the petioles, in spreading hairs. The scape bears a whorl of stalked, leaf-like involucral bracts beneath the inflorescence, which carries one to several flowers. Each flower lacks true petals; the showy perianth consists of five or more white, sometimes bluish- or pinkish-tinged tepals surrounding numerous stamens and a head of many free, hairy carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of compressed, beaked achenes adapted to wind and animal dispersal.

Formerly placed in Anemone, the species is now referred to the segregate genus Anemonastrum, accepted by POWO and GBIF, reflecting molecular and morphological re-circumscription of the windflowers; the basionym honours Hooker and Thomson. Ecologically it is a conspicuous element of summer-flowering alpine turf, offering pollen and nectar to high-altitude insects. Widespread and often locally abundant throughout the Himalaya, it is not of conservation concern, though its grassland habitats are subject to grazing and climatic shifts.

Author: (Hook.f. & Thomson) Holub · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Ziman et al. revision of Anemonastrum

Ranunculaceae

Anemonastrum obtusilobum

by GP Jürgens

(D.Don) Mosyakin

Bhutan2014 516
Bhutan Yatong-La 3200m, May
Nepal 99 82 ergebnis
Bhutan Bhulbhule 3150m, June

Description

Anemonastrum obtusilobum, long known as Anemone obtusiloba, is a widespread Himalayan and Central Asian alpine herb recorded from China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, with a substantial 825 occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of open alpine and subalpine meadows, grassy slopes, forest clearings and stony turf, typically between 2500 and 4500 m. The localities cited, Yatong-La at 3200 m in May and Bhulbhule at 3150 m in June in Bhutan, are characteristic of the moist, herb-rich montane grassland where it carpets slopes in spring and early summer.

The species is a tufted perennial herb from a stout, often branched rootstock clothed with the fibrous remains of old leaf bases. The basal leaves are long-petiolate and palmately three-lobed, the lobes broad and obtusely toothed (hence obtusilobum), softly hairy and somewhat fleshy. The flowering scape bears an involucre of leaf-like bracts and one to several flowers; each flower lacks petals but has five to eight petaloid sepals that are white, cream, yellow or violet-blue, surrounding numerous yellow stamens and a cluster of free carpels. The fruit is a head of compressed, glabrous achenes each tipped with a short style.

The segregate genus Anemonastrum was resurrected on molecular grounds from the broadly circumscribed Anemone, grouping the herbaceous, palmately lobed-leaved species with basal involucres; A. obtusilobum is a polymorphic species varying greatly in flower colour and stature across its range, prompting recognition of several varieties. Its insect-pollinated flowers and dry achenes, dispersed by wind and animals, suit the open alpine environment. The species is common and of least conservation concern, though it remains a useful indicator of intact Himalayan alpine meadow communities.

Author: (D.Don) Mosyakin · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Ranunculaceae

Anemonastrum polyanthes

by GP Jürgens

(D.Don) Holub

Bh09 32 G59
Bhutan above Paro 3200m, June
Garh 07 464 ergebnis
India Garhwal Khiar Kutti 3900m, June

Description

Anemonastrum polyanthes (formerly Anemone polyanthes) is a robust alpine herb distributed across the Himalaya and into western China, with GBIF holding around 362 occurrences from India, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. It grows in subalpine and alpine meadows, open slopes, forest clearings and grazed pastures, typically between 3000 and 4300 m, flowering with the onset of the summer monsoon. The cited collections from above Paro in Bhutan at 3200 m and from Khiar Kutti in Garhwal, India, at 3900 m, both in June, capture its broad altitudinal spread across damp, herb-rich high-meadow turf.

It is a perennial arising from a stout rootstock, with all principal leaves basal, long-petiolate and palmately three- to five-partite, the segments deeply cut and toothed, hairy on both surfaces. The flowering stem bears a whorl of leaf-like, sessile involucral bracts subtending an umbel-like cyme of several flowers, as the epithet polyanthes implies. Each flower lacks petals; the five to eight petaloid sepals are white, sometimes flushed pinkish or bluish outside, surrounding numerous yellow stamens and a domed cluster of carpels. The fruits are flattened, glabrous, ovate achenes with a short hooked beak, aggregated into a rounded head.

The segregate genus Anemonastrum, raised from Anemone on molecular and morphological grounds, accommodates this group of umbellate-flowered, multi-flowered montane species. Like other Ranunculaceae it contains acrid protoanemonin, deterring grazing livestock so that it often persists conspicuously in over-grazed alpine pasture. Widespread and frequently common throughout the Himalayan arc, it is of Least Concern and serves as a prominent component of summer-flowering high-altitude meadow communities.

Author: (D.Don) Holub · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Hand-Mazzetti and Tamura treatments of Anemone