Tag:

Montane (1500-2500 m)

Orchideaceae

Cymbidium iridioides

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

Bhutan2012 1162
Bhutan Tashiyangtse 1900m, October
Bhutan2012 1163
Bhutan Tashiyangtse 1900m, October
Bhutan2012 1260
Bhutan Tashiyangtse 2000m, October

Description

Cymbidium iridioides is a large epiphytic orchid of the Sino-Himalayan and Indochinese region, native from China and the Himalaya (India, Nepal, Bhutan) through Myanmar to Vietnam, with the GBIF dataset reflecting both wild records and cultivated specimens in Europe and North America. It grows as an epiphyte, and occasionally a lithophyte, on mossy trunks and rocks in humid broad-leaved and evergreen montane forest, generally between about 1,200 and 2,800 m. The plants figured were photographed near Tashiyangtse in eastern Bhutan at roughly 1,900 to 2,000 m in October, where the species comes into flower at the close of the monsoon.

It is a robust, tufted epiphyte with stout, fusiform to ovoid pseudobulbs largely enclosed by the bases of several distichous, linear-ligulate, leathery leaves. The inflorescence is a stout, arching to pendent raceme arising laterally from the pseudobulb and bearing numerous large, showy flowers. The sepals and petals are yellowish-green, longitudinally veined and streaked with reddish-brown; the trilobed labellum is recurved, marked with red lines and crested with two longitudinal, papillose-pubescent keels, the side lobes erect about the column. The fruit is an ellipsoid, ribbed capsule releasing copious dust-like seeds.

The species belongs to Cymbidium section Iridorchis, marked by large pseudobulbs, many-flowered pendent racemes and hairy lip keels. Like other large Cymbidium it is bee-pollinated and depends on mycorrhizal fungi for establishment. Long valued in horticulture and medicine, it has been heavily collected; the genus is listed on CITES Appendix II, and over-collection with forest loss is the principal threat.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, The Orchids of Bhutan (Pearce & Cribb), Du Puy & Cribb's monograph The Genus Cymbidium

Orchideaceae

Cyrtosia lindleyana

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Sikkim 2006 306 ergebnis
Sikkim Ringi-Chu Tolung Gompa 2410m, May
Sikkim 2006 477 ergebnis
Sikkim Ringi-Chu Tolung Gompa 2410m, May
Sikkim 2006 475 ergebnis
Sikkim Ringi-Chu Tolung Gompa 2410m, May

Description

Cyrtosia lindleyana Hook.f. & Thomson is a leafless, mycoheterotrophic orchid of the tribe Vanilleae, distributed across the eastern Himalaya and into mainland and insular Southeast Asia. Its range, documented through some 400 georeferenced records, spans Nepal, northeast India, Bhutan, southern China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia. The species favours the deep humus and leaf litter of shaded, humid broad-leaved and mixed forests, where it depends on a mycorrhizal fungal partner for its entire nutrition. It typically occurs at montane elevations between roughly 1,500 and 2,800 m, consistent with the photographed population at Ringi-Chu near Tolung Gompa in Sikkim, recorded at 2,410 m in May.

Lacking chlorophyll, the plant emerges only to flower and fruit, arising from a stout, fleshy, coralloid rhizome that ramifies through the substrate. The erect, brownish to ochre, scale-clad inflorescence bears a loose raceme or panicle of comparatively large flowers. These are fleshy and yellowish, often suffused with brown or russet tones, with spreading sepals and petals and a concave, somewhat saccate lip bearing internal ridges. The fruit is distinctive among orchids: a large, fleshy, berry-like, indehiscent capsule, red at maturity, containing hard-coated seeds rather than the typical dust-fine orchid seed.

The genus Cyrtosia, together with allied Galeola, exemplifies the repeated evolution of full mycoheterotrophy within Vanilleae and is of considerable interest for studies of orchid–fungus associations. Because the plants are inconspicuous and only briefly visible, the species is easily overlooked and under-recorded. As an obligate forest-floor mycoheterotroph it is highly sensitive to logging and disturbance of soil mycota, and like all orchids is afforded protection under CITES Appendix II.

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

Orchideaceae

Dactylorhiza hatagirea

by G & P Jürgens

(D.Don) Soó

Nepal 99 109 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3600m, June
Garh 07 43 ergebnis
India Garhwal Nanu at Mandakini 2400m, June

Description

Dactylorhiza hatagirea (D.Don) Soó is a terrestrial marsh orchid of the Himalaya and Central Asia, recorded from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Mongolia and Russia; the GBIF dataset of 311 occurrences reflects a wide but increasingly fragmented high-altitude range. It grows in moist alpine and subalpine meadows, marshy grassland, streamsides and damp slopes, broadly between 2500 and 4000 m. The photographed plants from south of Rara Lake in West Nepal at about 3600 m and from Nanu at the Mandakini in Garhwal, India, at about 2400 m, both flowering in June, exemplify its early-summer anthesis in cool, wet, open meadows across the western and central Himalaya.

The species is an erect, glabrous, tuberous perennial herb arising from palmately lobed, hand-shaped root-tubers — the digitate tubers giving both the generic name and the local trade name "Hatajari" or "Salampanja." The stem is stout and hollow, bearing several oblong-lanceolate, sheathing, usually unspotted leaves grading into bracts above. The inflorescence is a dense, many-flowered terminal spike of pink to purple-violet flowers; each has spreading sepals, a hooded arrangement of the upper segments, and a broad, three-lobed, darkly spotted labellum with a stout, descending spur. The column bears two pollinia, and the fruit is a ribbed, dehiscent capsule releasing minute, dust-like seeds.

Dactylorhiza (Orchidaceae, subtribe Orchidinae) is a north-temperate genus of tuberous marsh orchids defined by palmately divided tubers and spurred, lobed labella; D. hatagirea is its principal Himalayan representative. The dried tubers are intensively harvested for the salep trade and traditional medicine, and this over-collection, compounded by grazing and habitat loss, has driven steep population declines. It is consequently listed on CITES Appendix II and regarded as threatened and legally protected across much of its range, making it a priority for conservation and sustainable management.

Author: (D.Don) Soó · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Pridgeon et al. — Genera Orchidacearum

Thymelaeaceae

Daphne sureil

by GP Jürgens

W.W.Sm. & Cave

Bhutan2012 638
Bhutan Tserang, 1600m September
Bhutan2015 218
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October
Bh2008 515 P790
Bhutan Chongsakha, 1800m April

Description

Daphne sureil is a shrub of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, recorded from India, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Vietnam, with about 124 documented occurrences. It is a plant of warm-temperate and subtropical broad-leaved forest, growing in the understorey and along forest margins, ravines and stream banks on moist, well-drained slopes. In Bhutan it occupies the lower to middle montane belt across a broad elevational span, as shown by collections from Tserang at about 1600 m in September, Zhemgang at 1000 m in October and Chongsakha at 1800 m in April, the spring date corresponding to its flowering period.

The species is an evergreen shrub with slender, glabrous branches bearing alternate, shortly petiolate leaves that are elliptic to oblanceolate, entire, acuminate or acute at the apex and tapering at the base, leathery and glossy above with a paler lower surface. The flowers are borne in small terminal clusters and lack petals, the floral display formed instead by a tubular, fragrant white to creamy perianth of four spreading lobes, the tube silky-pubescent without and enclosing eight stamens in two whorls. The fruit is a fleshy ovoid drupe, ripening red, containing a single seed.

Daphne sureil was described by W. W. Smith and Cave from the eastern Himalaya and belongs to the predominantly evergreen Asian assemblage of the genus. As in other Daphne species, the bark contains tough phloem fibres and the tissues bear the diterpenoid daphnane compounds responsible for their acridity and toxicity. The bird-dispersed drupes and strongly scented, presumably moth-pollinated flowers reflect typical thymelaeaceous biology. The species is locally frequent in suitable forest but, being tied to lower-montane broad-leaved woodland, is potentially vulnerable to habitat clearance at its lower elevational limits.

Author: W.W.Sm. & Cave · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Nepal, Halda monograph The Genus Daphne

Daphniphyllaceae

Daphniphyllum chartaceum

by GP Jürgens

K.Rosenth.

Bhutan2012 636
Bhutan Tserang 1660m, June

Description

Daphniphyllum chartaceum is an evergreen tree or large shrub of the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burmese uplands, recorded by GBIF, with around 140 occurrences, from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Vietnam and Myanmar. It is a component of moist, broad-leaved evergreen and warm-temperate forest, growing on humid slopes, in ravines and along forest margins, typically between about 1500 and 2500 m. The photographed plant from Tserang in Bhutan, at roughly 1660 m and recorded in June, is representative of its mid-elevation, subtropical-to-warm-temperate forest habitat, where it occupies the understorey to mid-canopy of dense, evergreen Himalayan woodland under a humid, monsoon-influenced climate.

The species is a dioecious tree with smooth bark and stout twigs bearing leaves crowded toward the branch tips. The leaves are simple, alternate but often appearing pseudo-whorled, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, leathery to chartaceous (papery, as the epithet indicates), entire-margined, with the lower surface usually glaucous and conspicuously papillose, and frequently reddish petioles. Being dioecious, male and female flowers are borne on separate trees in axillary racemes; the flowers are small and apetalous, the males with numerous stamens and the females with a unilocular to bilocular ovary, lacking showy perianth. The fruit is a small, ellipsoid, one-seeded drupe, bluish-black and often glaucous at maturity, borne in short axillary clusters.

Daphniphyllum is the sole genus of Daphniphyllaceae, an isolated family of eastern and southern Asia of considerable phylogenetic interest, placed near Saxifragales and noted for its distinctive Daphniphyllum alkaloids. D. chartaceum is distinguished within the genus by its papery, glaucous-papillose leaves and has been associated with the variable D. himalense complex, with which it shares its montane Himalayan range. The fleshy drupes are dispersed by birds, and the dioecious breeding system enforces outcrossing. The species is reasonably widespread across the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burma and is not regarded as threatened, though, like many evergreen forest trees of the region, local populations are sensitive to deforestation and land-use change.

Author: K.Rosenth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Huang's monograph of Daphniphyllum

Lardizabalaceae

Decaisnea insignis

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Sikkim 2006 329 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1700m, May

Description

Decaisnea insignis is a deciduous shrub of the Himalaya and southwest China, native to China, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar, and now widely grown as an ornamental, accounting for numerous records in Europe, North America and elsewhere. It occupies moist temperate forest, forest margins, ravines and shrubby slopes, typically between about 1500 and 3500 m. The photographed plant from Chaana in West Bengal, India, at roughly 1700 m and flowering in May, is characteristic of cool, humid mid-montane forest where it favours sheltered, well-watered situations with rich, humus-laden soils.

The plant is an erect, sparsely branched shrub with stout, pithy stems. The leaves are large, alternate, imparipinnate, with numerous ovate to ovate-lanceolate, entire, acuminate, glaucous-backed leaflets. The flowers are borne in pendulous terminal panicles and are functionally unisexual, with six narrow, greenish-yellow, petaloid sepals and no true petals. The most distinctive feature is the fruit: pendent, cylindrical, sausage-shaped follicles that ripen a striking metallic blue, the fleshy interior containing a translucent, sweetish pulp embedding numerous flattened black seeds, giving rise to the common name dead man's fingers.

The genus commemorates the French botanist Joseph Decaisne, and insignis alludes to its remarkable blue fruit. Some authors treat the blue-fruited Himalayan plants as D. insignis distinct from the yellow-fruited Chinese D. fargesii, though the two are frequently united. The Lardizabalaceae is a small, mainly East Asian family of climbers and shrubs; D. insignis is anomalous as an erect, non-twining member. The conspicuous fleshy fruits suggest vertebrate dispersal, and the species is widely cultivated and not threatened.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of the Lardizabalaceae

Orchideaceae

Dendrobium aphyllum

by G & P Jürgens

C.E.C. Fisch.

Sikkim2011 17
Sikkim Lachen 2460m, June
Bhutan2014 703
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2280m, May
BhutanPG2011 56 ergebnis
Bhutan Jakar, 20m June
Bhutan2014 702
Bhutan Jakar, 2600m June
Nepal 1994 8 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Tumlingtar 340m April

Description

Dendrobium aphyllum is a widespread epiphytic orchid of tropical and subtropical Asia, ranging from India and Nepal through southern China and across mainland Southeast Asia, with GBIF documenting occurrences from India, China, Thailand, Bhutan, Nepal, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos among many territories. It grows as an epiphyte, and sometimes a lithophyte, on tree trunks and rocks in warm, humid lowland and lower montane forest, enduring a distinct dry season during which the canes shed their leaves. It occupies low to middle elevations; the records span Tumlingtar in eastern Nepal at about 340 m to Sikkim's Lachen and Bhutanese sites up to roughly 2600 m, with the photographed material flowering from April through June across this broad altitudinal range.

The plant produces long, slender, pendulous cane-like stems that branch and trail from the host, leafy when young and largely leaf-shedding before flowering. The leaves are thin, lanceolate and deciduous. The flowers emerge in twos and threes from the nodes of the bare, hanging canes, fragrant and delicately coloured, with pale rose-pink to lilac sepals and petals. The labellum is broadly funnel-shaped to subobicular, cream to pale yellow and finely downy within, often marked with darker veining and rolled around the column to form a trumpet, the lower margin sometimes faintly fringed. The fruit is a pendent capsule.

D. aphyllum is placed in Dendrobium section Dendrobium and is characterised by its leafless flowering canes, as reflected in the epithet; it has accumulated synonymy and is sometimes confused with related pendent species such as D. primulinum and D. anosmum. Long cultivated as an ornamental and used in some traditional medicines, it remains common over much of its vast range, though localised populations are depleted by wild collection and lowland forest clearance.

Author: C.E.C. Fisch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, The Orchids of Bhutan (Pearce & Cribb), Dendrobium and its Allies (Lavarack et al.)

Orchideaceae

Dendrobium densiflorum

by GP Jürgens

Lindl. ex. Wall.

Nepal 97 359 P703
Nepal Arun-Valley 1650m
Nepal 97 358 P701
Nepal Arun-Valley 1650m

Description

Dendrobium densiflorum is a robust epiphytic orchid of the subtropical and warm-temperate forests of the eastern Himalaya and Indochina, recorded natively from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, with 247 GBIF occurrences (several extralimital records reflecting cultivation). It grows as an epiphyte, and occasionally a lithophyte, on mossy trees and shaded rock faces in humid broadleaved forest, generally between about 1000 and 1800 m. The illustrated plant comes from the Arun Valley of eastern Nepal at around 1650 m, a deep monsoon-fed gorge where rich epiphyte communities clothe the evergreen forest.

The species forms stout, clustered, club-shaped to fusiform pseudobulbous canes that are four-angled and longitudinally furrowed, bearing several leathery, oblong-elliptic leaves toward the apex. The inflorescence is its glory: a dense, pendulous, cylindrical raceme arising near the cane apex and carrying many closely set flowers. Each flower has bright golden-yellow, spreading sepals and broader petals, and a conspicuous, broadly orbicular, downy lip of deep egg-yolk orange-yellow, fringed at the margin. The fruit is a ribbed capsule.

The species belongs to Dendrobium section Densiflora, distinguished by these massed, pendent, golden 'pineapple' inflorescences. Spectacular in flower, it has long been prized in horticulture, and over-collection from the wild together with forest clearance has reduced many accessible populations; as with all Dendrobium it is regulated under CITES Appendix II. Its biogeography typifies the Sino-Himalayan epiphytic orchid flora that reaches its western limit in the wet middle-hill forests of Nepal.

Author: Lindl. ex. Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Orchids of Nepal, Dendrobium and its Allies (Lavarack, Harris & Stocker)

Orchideaceae

Dendrobium eriiflorum

by GP Jürgens

Griff.

Nepal 95 303 P547 ergebnis
Nepal Bharang 1850m October

Description

Dendrobium eriiflorum is an epiphytic orchid of the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burmese region, distributed through Nepal, northern India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar into Thailand, peninsular Malaysia and Indonesia; GBIF records about 112 occurrences across this range. It is a plant of the subtropical to lower temperate broadleaved forest, growing as an epiphyte on tree trunks and mossy branches in humid, shaded montane woodland, as documented at Bharang in Nepal at 1850 m. In this elevational band it benefits from high atmospheric moisture and a pronounced monsoon, and is recorded in flower in October toward the close of the wet season.

It is a small, tufted epiphyte with clustered, slender, erect to pendent stems (pseudobulb-like canes) sheathed by the membranous bases of the leaves. The leaves are thin, narrowly lanceolate, distichous and deciduous, leaving the older canes leafless. The inflorescences are short, few-flowered racemes arising laterally near the stem apex; the flowers are small, pale greenish-white to cream and densely covered externally with fine hairs, the hairy perianth recalling the genus Eria and giving rise to the epithet "eriiflorum". The lip is three-lobed with a recurved apex, and the column bears a short foot forming a mentum, with the pollinia waxy in the manner typical of Dendrobium.

The species was described by William Griffith, an early explorer of the Himalayan and Burmese flora. Within the large, taxonomically complex genus Dendrobium it falls among the small-flowered Himalayan species; the distinctive pubescent flowers are an unusual diagnostic feature among its relatives. Pollination in such Dendrobium is generally by small bees attracted to the lip. As an epiphyte dependent on intact, humid forest canopy, it is sensitive to deforestation and to the horticultural collection that affects many Himalayan orchids; like all Dendrobium it is listed on CITES Appendix II, regulating international trade.

Author: Griff. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Orchids of Nepal, Seidenfaden's monographic studies of Dendrobium

Orchideaceae

Dendrobium falconeri

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.

BhutanPG2011 8
Bhutan Paro, 2400m June

Pendent epiphyte to 50 cm long and slender branched, bearing few linear-oblong leaves from bead-like.

Description

Dendrobium falconeri is a pendent epiphytic orchid native to the Himalayas, ranging from Nepal and northeast India through Bhutan to Myanmar, Thailand, and southwest China. It grows on mossy tree trunks and branches in humid montane forests at 800–2,000 m elevation.

The plant has slender, branching, wiry stems up to 50 cm long, bearing small, linear-oblong leaves at intervals along bead-like nodes. The flowers are among the most beautiful in the genus: 4–5 cm across, white to pale pink with bright purple tips on the petals and a large, trumpet-shaped lip marked with two conspicuous maroon-purple blotches and a yellow throat. Flowers appear singly or in pairs from leafless nodes, typically from March to May.

Dendrobium falconeri is prized in orchid cultivation for its striking colour pattern. In the wild, it is increasingly rare due to overcollection and deforestation. Listed under CITES Appendix II.

Author: Hook. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Bhutan, CITES Checklist, OrchidSpecies.com