Tag:

Montane (1500-2500 m)

Orchideaceae

Coelogyne cristata

by GP Jürgens

Lindl.

Nepal1992 90 P124 ergebnis
Nepal Amjilassa 2300m March 
Nepal1992 165 P240 ergebnis
Nepal Amjilassa 2300m March 

Description

Coelogyne cristata is an epiphytic orchid of the central and eastern Himalaya, native to Nepal, India, Bhutan and China and widely grown in cultivation, a circumstance reflected in the broad GBIF country list (over 400 records spanning numerous European and American countries alongside its native range), most extraterritorial records being garden plants. In the wild it grows as an epiphyte and occasional lithophyte on mossy tree trunks, branches and shaded rock faces in humid temperate forest. The illustrated plant from Amjilassa in eastern Nepal, at about 2300 m and flowering in March, typifies its preference for cool, mist-laden montane forest where it blooms in the dry late-winter to early-spring season.

The plant grows from a creeping rhizome bearing crowded, ovoid to oblong, glossy green pseudobulbs, each topped by two strap-shaped, plicate, leathery leaves. The inflorescence is a pendulous to arching raceme arising from the base of the pseudobulb and carrying several large, fragrant flowers. These are crystalline white, with spreading, somewhat undulate sepals and petals and a trumpet-shaped, three-lobed labellum whose disc bears conspicuous golden-yellow, fringed and crested keels — the feature giving rise to the epithet cristata. The column is slender and winged, and the fruit is a ribbed dehiscent capsule releasing dust-like seeds.

Coelogyne is a large Asian orchid genus, and C. cristata ranks among its most celebrated members, long prized in horticulture for its abundant snow-white blooms. Like all orchids it is listed under CITES Appendix II, and wild populations are vulnerable to over-collection for the ornamental trade and to loss of the humid forest habitat on which it depends; sustaining intact montane forest is therefore central to its in-situ conservation across the Himalaya.

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

Orchideaceae

Coelogyne uniflora 

by GP Jürgens

Lindl.

Nepal 2001 464 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Gunda 1700m, May

Description

Coelogyne uniflora (long known as Panisea uniflora) is an epiphytic orchid distributed across the eastern Himalaya and Indochina, ranging from Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan through northeast India to southern China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia; GBIF records 90 occurrences across this range. It grows as an epiphyte on mossy trunks and branches, and occasionally as a lithophyte on shaded rocks, in humid subtropical to lower temperate broad-leaved and evergreen forest, generally between about 1000 and 2200 m. The photographed plant from Gunda in the Gorkha district of Nepal at 1700 m in May illustrates its flowering at the onset of the monsoon, when atmospheric humidity in these mid-montane forests is high.

It is a small, tufted, sympodial epiphyte with closely spaced, ovoid to cylindrical pseudobulbs borne on a creeping rhizome, each pseudobulb bearing one or two narrowly lanceolate, plicate leaves. The inflorescence is short and few-flowered, usually carrying a single relatively large flower (whence uniflora) at or near the base of the new growth. The flower has spreading, pale creamy-white to yellowish sepals and petals; the lip (labellum) is three-lobed, often marked with reddish-brown to orange and bearing low keels on the disc, the lateral lobes erect. The column is slender and the fruit a ribbed dehiscent capsule releasing dust-like seeds.

The species exemplifies recent generic realignments within the Coelogyninae (Orchidaceae): the genus Panisea has been subsumed into a broadly circumscribed Coelogyne on molecular phylogenetic grounds, so the wp_link "panisea-uniflora" reflects the former placement while Coelogyne uniflora is the currently accepted name. Like other coelogynes it produces minute wind-dispersed seeds dependent on mycorrhizal fungi for germination. Though wide-ranging, epiphytic orchids are sensitive to deforestation and collection and are afforded CITES Appendix II protection.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 25, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, The Genus Coelogyne: A Synopsis (Clayton & Pradhan)

Lamiaceae

Colquhounia coccinea

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2012 13
Bhutan Paro, 2300m September
Nepal 95 95 P164 ergebnis
Nepal Barphak 2000m October
Garw 2005 209 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Pana 2800m, September

Description

Colquhounia coccinea is a showy shrubby mint of the Himalaya and southwestern China. GBIF records it from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Thailand and Myanmar, with cultivated and introduced occurrences in Australia, Europe and North America, totalling around 670 records. It grows in open forest, scrub, thickets and along hill slopes and roadsides in the warm temperate zone, generally between 1500 and 3000 m. The populations illustrated were photographed at Paro in Bhutan (2300 m), Barphak in Nepal (2000 m) and Pana in Garhwal, India (2800 m), flowering in September and October, its characteristic autumn flowering season in the Himalayan foothills.

It is a robust, sprawling or semi-scandent shrub up to 2-3 m, the stems and foliage clothed in stellate or felted indumentum. The opposite leaves are ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, crenate-serrate and rugose, greyish-tomentose beneath. The flowers are borne in dense axillary cymose clusters; the curved, tubular, two-lipped corolla is brilliant scarlet to orange-red, well exserted from the calyx, with four didynamous stamens. The fruit is unusual among Lamiaceae in that the nutlets are winged, an adaptation favouring wind dispersal from the often steep slopes the plant occupies.

Colquhounia is a small Sino-Himalayan genus of subfamily Lamioideae, and the winged nutlets and tubular red corollas distinguish it within the family. The vivid scarlet, nectar-rich tubular flowers are adapted to bird pollination, notably by sunbirds, an uncommon strategy in the predominantly bee-pollinated mints. Long valued as an ornamental and frost-tender garden shrub, the species is widespread and locally common, and is not of conservation concern.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Phylogeny and classification of subfamily Lamioideae (Lamiaceae)

Corallodiscinae

Corallodiscus lanuginosus

by GP Jürgens

(Wall. ex R.Br.) B.L.Burtt

Nepal 97 369 P725
Nepal Arun-Valley 1750m May
Nepal 99 927 ergebnis
West-Nepal Roha 2750m, July

Description

Corallodiscus lanuginosus (Wall. ex R.Br.) B.L.Burtt is a rosette-forming, rupicolous perennial of the Gesneriaceae, distributed across the Himalaya and southwest China. GBIF data (over 2,000 occurrences) record it from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand, indicating a broad Sino-Himalayan range. It was photographed in Nepal in the Arun Valley (1,750 m, May) and at Roha in west Nepal (2,750 m, July), reflecting its occurrence on shaded, mossy cliff faces, rock crevices, and boulders in montane forest, generally between about 1,500 and 3,500 m where humidity is high.

The plant forms a compact basal rosette of leaves pressed against the rock surface. The leaves are obovate to elliptic, with a crenate margin, the upper surface dark green and rugose, the lower surface densely clothed in woolly, rusty to whitish hairs (hence "lanuginosus"). Slender, leafless scapes bear cymose clusters of flowers; the corolla is tubular-campanulate and bluish-violet to purple with a paler throat, with the slightly oblique limb and reduced fertile stamens typical of the genus. The fruit is a slender capsule.

Corallodiscus belongs to the Old World Gesneriaceae (subfamily Didymocarpoideae) and is closely allied to the lithophytic Himalayan radiation that includes Didymocarpus and allies; the input subtribe name reflects this placement. Many populations exhibit poikilohydric, resurrection-like desiccation tolerance, surviving dry periods on exposed rock and reviving with the monsoon. Widespread and locally common on cliffs, the species is not considered threatened.

Author: (Wall. ex R.Br.) B.L.Burtt · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Burtt: Studies in the Gesneriaceae of the Old World

Coriariaceae

Coriaria nepalensis

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Nepal 97 354 P693
Nepal Arun-Valley 1650m May

Description

Coriaria nepalensis is a shrub of the Himalaya and adjacent mountains of western China, ranging from Pakistan through the Indian Himalaya, Nepal and Bhutan to south-western China and Myanmar. GBIF aggregates around 1880 occurrences, including scattered introductions in Europe and Japan where it is grown as a curiosity. It is a vigorous colonist of open hillsides, landslips, riverbanks, terrace edges and disturbed ground, often forming thickets on poor soils between about 1000 and 3000 m. The plant from the Arun Valley of eastern Nepal at 1650 m in May is characteristic of its role as a pioneer of the subtropical to warm-temperate hill zone.

It is a much-branched deciduous shrub with arching, reddish, four-angled young branchlets. The leaves are opposite or whorled, sessile or subsessile, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, entire and conspicuously three- to five-veined from the base. The small flowers are borne in slender axillary or terminal racemes, with five sepals and five small petals; after flowering the petals enlarge, becoming fleshy and dark purple-black, closely investing the cluster of achene-like fruitlets to form a juicy, mulberry-like pseudo-fruit. These succulent infructescences are bird-dispersed but, like the whole plant, are highly poisonous, containing the convulsant sesquiterpene coriamyrtin.

Coriariaceae is a small, isolated family of the single genus Coriaria, with a remarkable disjunct distribution across the Mediterranean, eastern Asia, the Himalaya, New Zealand and the Americas, a textbook case of relictual biogeography. C. nepalensis fixes atmospheric nitrogen through root nodules harbouring the actinomycete Frankia, underpinning its success on impoverished, eroded substrates. Widespread and weedy in its native range, it is of no conservation concern, though its toxicity is locally significant to livestock.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Skog revision of Coriaria

Cornaceae

Cornus capitata

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

BhutanPG2011 45 1
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m June
Bh09 284 P467
Bhutan Paro 2300m June

Description

Cornus capitata Wall. is an evergreen dogwood of the Cornaceae native to the Himalaya and SW China, recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and China, and now widely cultivated and naturalised in temperate regions worldwide (Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), accounting for its very large tally of over 4,200 georeferenced records. In its native range it grows in montane evergreen and mixed broad-leaved forest, forest margins, ravines and open hillsides, generally between about 1,000 and 3,200 m. The photographed trees from Wangdi at about 2,500 m and Paro at about 2,300 m in Bhutan, flowering in June, are typical of its mid-montane habitat in the eastern Himalaya.

It is a small to medium evergreen tree or large shrub with leathery, opposite, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate leaves that are dark green above and pale or glaucous beneath, with arcuate lateral veins. The small four-merous flowers are densely aggregated into a globose head subtended by four (to six) large, showy, creamy-white to pale-yellow petaloid bracts that function as the display structure. After flowering the entire head develops into a fleshy, strawberry-like compound fruit, a syncarp of fused drupes, ripening crimson-red and edible.

Cornus capitata belongs to the bracteate, head-flowered group of dogwoods (subgenus Syncarpea / Dendrobenthamia), in which numerous flowers and their swollen receptacles coalesce into a single fleshy aggregate fruit. The conspicuous bracts attract pollinators, while the sweet syncarp is dispersed by birds and mammals. Widely grown as an ornamental for its bracts and fruit, the species is common and widespread and of no conservation concern, though it has become locally invasive in parts of its introduced range.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Xiang et al.: Phylogeny and classification of Cornus (2006)

Papaveraceae

Corydalis leptocarpa

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2014 185
Bhutan Trachyangtse 2300m, May

Description

Corydalis leptocarpa is a Sino-Himalayan to East Asian fumitory recorded from China, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Japan, Nepal, Thailand and Korea, with around 163 GBIF occurrences spanning this broad temperate range. It is a plant of shaded, humid forest, woodland margins, mossy banks and damp ravines, typically at montane elevations from roughly 1500 to 3000 m. The individual photographed near Trashiyangtse (Trachyangtse, eastern Bhutan) at about 2300 m in May illustrates its association with moist broad-leaved forest in spring, when the slender stems and pale flowers appear in the dappled understorey.

The species is a slender, erect to ascending annual or short-lived perennial herb with brittle, somewhat glaucous foliage. The leaves are bi- to triternately compound, the ultimate segments ovate and lobed, borne on delicate petioles. The inflorescence is a lax raceme of pale yellow, zygomorphic flowers; each has four petals, the upper outer one prolonged backward into a slender spur, enclosing two stamen bundles and an elongate ovary. The fruit, as the epithet leptocarpa ('slender-fruited') indicates, is a narrow, linear, pendulous capsule that dehisces elastically to scatter the shining black seeds, which often bear an oily elaiosome.

Corydalis is one of the largest genera of the Papaveraceae (subfamily Fumarioideae), exceptionally diverse in the Sino-Himalaya, where hundreds of species occupy habitats from forest floor to alpine scree. C. leptocarpa belongs to the yellow-flowered woodland element of the genus. Many Corydalis species rely on ant-mediated seed dispersal of their elaiosome-bearing seeds. With its wide East Asian range and tolerance of forest-edge habitats it is not considered threatened, though it remains tied to intact montane forest cover.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lidén & Zetterlund monograph of Corydalis

Papaveraceae

Corydalis vaginans

by G & P Jürgens

Royle

Garw 2005 427 ergebnis
India Garhwal Didina 2470m, September

Description

Corydalis vaginans is a Sino-Himalayan herb of the western and central Himalaya, with georeferenced collections concentrated in India, Pakistan and Nepal; GBIF records some 164 occurrences. It is a plant of cool, humid temperate to subalpine zones, favouring shaded forest margins, moist rocky banks, stream sides and clearings within Quercus and Abies forest. The image, taken near Didina in Garhwal (India) at about 2470 m in September, illustrates its typical late-season flowering in this moist mid-montane belt, where it grows among ferns and tall herbs on humus-rich, well-drained slopes.

The plant is a slender, glaucous, glabrous annual or short-lived perennial arising from a slender taproot. Stems are erect to ascending, somewhat fleshy and ribbed, branched above. The leaves are alternate, the lower long-petiolate and conspicuously sheathing at the base (the epithet vaginans referring to these dilated sheaths), the blades two- to three-pinnately divided into ovate to cuneate, lobed segments. Flowers are borne in lax terminal and axillary racemes, zygomorphic and yellow, with two outer petals one of which is spurred and the inner petals connate and crested. The fruit is a slender, dehiscent siliquiform capsule containing several shining black seeds with an elaiosome.

Within the large, taxonomically intricate genus Corydalis, this species belongs to the predominantly Asian assemblage of mesophytic, sheathing-leaved annuals, distinct from the tuberous spring-flowering groups. Its ant-dispersed seeds (myrmecochory) and shade-tolerant habit allow colonisation of disturbed forest soils. Though not assessed as threatened, populations are localised and dependent on intact temperate forest cover, sensitive to deforestation and grazing in the western Himalaya.

Author: Royle · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flowers of the Himalaya (Polunin & Stainton), Lidén & Zetterlund monograph of Corydalis

Hamamelidaceae

Corylopsis himalayana

by GP Jürgens

Griff.

Bhutan2014 160
Bhutan Trashigang 1570m, May
Bhutan2014 161
Bhutan Trashigang 1570m, May

Description

Corylopsis himalayana is an eastern Himalayan winter-hazel distributed through NE India, Bhutan and adjacent SW China, GBIF recording around 181 occurrences (together with scattered cultivated records elsewhere). It is a shrub or small tree of temperate broadleaved forest, forest margins and thickets, typically on moist, well-drained slopes. The photographed plant from Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 1,570 m (May) is characteristic of its mid-elevation habitat in the warm temperate forest zone, where it occurs among other deciduous understorey and edge species.

It is a deciduous shrub or small tree with alternate, ovate to obovate leaves that are obliquely cordate at the base, with a serrate margin, prominent straight lateral veins and stellate or simple hairs beneath, the foliage often expanding after or with the flowers. The flowers are borne in pendent, catkin-like racemes; each is small, with five yellow, spathulate petals, five stamens and a half-inferior ovary, and the inflorescences are subtended by conspicuous bracts. The fruit is a woody, two-beaked capsule splitting to release shining black seeds.

Corylopsis belongs to the witch-hazel family Hamamelidaceae, a lineage of considerable phylogenetic interest as an early-diverging element of the eudicots, and the genus is prized horticulturally for its early-spring display of fragrant yellow racemes. C. himalayana represents the western, Himalayan outpost of a genus otherwise centred on East Asia, a distribution pattern echoing the well-known Sino-Himalayan to Japanese floristic links. Restricted to montane forest, it benefits from the conservation of intact temperate woodland across its limited range.

Author: Griff. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 9, Endress: Hamamelidaceae (in Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)

Gentianaceae

Crawfurdia campanulacea

by GP Jürgens

Wall. & Griff. ex C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2012 1153
Bhutan Tashiyangtse 1850m, October
Bhutan2012 1155
Bhutan Tashiyangtse 1850m, October

Description

Crawfurdia campanulacea is a twining gentian of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, distributed from north-eastern India through Bhutan and Bangladesh into Myanmar, Vietnam and south-western China; its roughly 220 georeferenced occurrences (CN, IN, MM, BD, BT, VN) mark it as a regional element of the moist subtropical-to-temperate forest belt. It is a climbing herb of forest margins, thickets, shaded slopes and stream banks, generally between about 1500 and 2800 m, flowering in the autumn. The plant photographed at Tashiyangtse in eastern Bhutan at 1850 m in October illustrates this late-season blooming within humid broad-leaved forest.

It is a perennial herbaceous climber with slender, twining stems scrambling over surrounding vegetation. The leaves are opposite, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, three- to five-nerved and short-petiolate, with entire margins. The conspicuous flowers are solitary or few in the upper axils, the corolla broadly campanulate (bell-shaped, as the epithet records), bluish-purple to violet, with five lobes and small plicate folds in the sinuses typical of the gentian alliance; there are five epipetalous stamens and a superior, stalked (stipitate) ovary. The fruit is a stipitate, ellipsoid capsule containing numerous small, flattened and often winged seeds.

Crawfurdia is a small Asian genus closely allied to Gentiana and Tripterospermum, distinguished by its twining habit and stipitate, winged-seeded capsules; some authors have submerged it within those genera, and its limits remain debated. Adapted to scrambling through forest understorey, C. campanulacea depends on intact woodland and is not regarded as threatened, though it is restricted to undisturbed montane forest across its range.

Author: Wall. & Griff. ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of India, Ho & Pringle's treatment of Gentianaceae