Tag:

Montane (1500-2500 m)

Melastomataceae

Osbeckia nutans

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2015 71
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 1700m, October
Bhutan2012 422
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September

Description

Osbeckia nutans Wall. is a subshrubby herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjoining Southeast Asia, recorded by GBIF (71 occurrences) from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Vietnam. It is a plant of open hillsides, grassy banks, forest clearings and roadside scrub in the subtropical to lower temperate zone, flowering chiefly in the autumn months. The cited Bhutanese material, gathered near Wangdue Phodrang at 1700 m in October and at 2700 m in September, illustrates its tolerance of a fairly wide altitudinal span on the warm, humid southern slopes where it colonises disturbed and seasonally moist ground.

The plant is an erect to ascending perennial with quadrangular, often setose stems bearing opposite, sessile to subsessile leaves. The leaf blades are lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate with the characteristic melastomataceous three-to-five strongly arcuate longitudinal nerves, and the surfaces are clothed in stiff appressed bristles. As the epithet nutans implies, the flowers or buds are inclined to nodding; the showy pink to purplish blooms have four petals, a setose, urceolate hypanthium, and the typical Melastomataceae androecium of geniculate stamens with elongate, beaked anthers opening by terminal pores. The fruit is a setose, urceolate capsule enclosed in the persistent hypanthium.

Osbeckia is a palaeotropical genus of around 50 species centred on tropical Asia, distinguished from the related Melastoma by its smaller, dry, pore-opening capsules. Its poricidal anthers are adapted to buzz-pollination by bees. Several Osbeckia species have ethnomedicinal uses in the region. Osbeckia nutans is locally frequent and not regarded as threatened, persisting well in open and lightly disturbed habitats.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Melastomataceae of the Indian Subcontinent, Hansen monograph on Osbeckia

Melastomataceae

Osbeckia stellata

by G & P Jürgens

Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don

Bhutan2012 530
Bhutan Tserang 1300m, September
Bhutan2012 660
Bhutan Tserang 1600m, September
Bhutan2015 206
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October
Bhutan2015 207
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October

Description

Osbeckia stellata Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don is a shrub of the melastome family ranging across the Himalaya and tropical Asia, recorded from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos, with about 704 GBIF occurrences. It grows on open hillsides, forest margins, scrub, grassy banks and disturbed slopes in the subtropical and warm-temperate belt, generally between about 900 and 2000 m. It was recorded in Bhutan at Tserang at 1300 and 1600 m and at Zhemgang around 1000 m, flowering in September and October, when its conspicuous magenta blooms colour the autumn hill vegetation of the outer ranges.

It is an erect, branched shrub with quadrangular, often reddish stems bearing appressed, bristly stellate or strigose hairs. The leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate, entire, and conspicuously three- to five-nerved with the characteristic curved-convergent venation of Melastomataceae, both surfaces rough with stiff hairs. The flowers are large and showy, borne in terminal cymose clusters; the four broad obovate petals are rose-purple to magenta, surrounding eight stamens with distinctively geniculate, beaked anthers, set on an urceolate hypanthium clothed in branched, stellate-tipped bristles. The fruit is an urn-shaped capsule enclosed by the persistent bristly hypanthium, releasing numerous minute cochleate seeds.

Osbeckia is distinguished from the related Melastoma by its smaller seeds and capsular fruit, and O. stellata is among the most ornamental and widespread Himalayan species, sometimes grown for its vivid flowers. Its poricidal anthers are buzz-pollinated by bees, while the small seeds are dispersed from the dry capsules. Common in disturbed and secondary habitats, it readily colonises cleared ground and is of no conservation concern.

Author: Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Melastomataceae monograph (Hansen revision of Osbeckia)

Santalaceae

Osyris lanceolata

by G & P Jürgens

Hochst. & Steud.

Bhutan2014 151
Bhutan Trashigang 1700m, May

Description

Osyris lanceolata, the East African sandalwood, is a remarkably wide-ranging evergreen shrub spanning the Mediterranean basin, much of Africa and southern Asia; its roughly 4217 GBIF records reach from Spain, Portugal and Morocco through eastern and southern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola) to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China and Bhutan. In the eastern Himalaya it occupies warm, dry montane slopes, as recorded near Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at about 1700 m in May. It favours open woodland, scrub and rocky hillsides on well-drained soils, persisting as a hardy, drought-tolerant component of seasonally dry vegetation.

The plant is a glabrous, much-branched shrub or small tree with slender, angular green twigs and alternate, leathery leaves that are narrowly lanceolate to elliptic, sometimes reduced and scale-like. Like other Santalaceae it is a hemiparasite, attaching by root haustoria to neighbouring plants while retaining green, photosynthetic foliage. The species is dioecious, bearing small, greenish-yellow flowers in axillary clusters on separate plants; the inferior ovary develops into a small, globose, fleshy drupe ripening red to blackish and dispersed by birds.

Osyris belongs to the sandalwood family, and O. lanceolata is exploited as a substitute for true sandalwood, its aromatic, oil-rich heartwood harvested for fragrant oil, carvings and incense. This demand has driven heavy, often illegal exploitation, particularly in East Africa, causing severe population declines and the listing of its populations under CITES Appendix II. The Himalayan populations form part of this broad, biogeographically intriguing range.

Author: Hochst. & Steud. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Tropical East Africa (Santalaceae)

Araliaceae

Panax bipinnatifidus

by G & P Jürgens

Seem.

Sikkim 2006 316 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1800m, May

Description

Panax bipinnatifidus is a Sino-Himalayan ginseng distributed through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent uplands of mainland Asia, with GBIF documenting some 900 occurrences across India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand. It is a herb of shaded, humus-rich temperate broad-leaved and conifer forests, growing among leaf litter on cool, moist slopes and in mossy understorey, generally between about 1800 and 3500 m. The photographed plant from Chaana in West Bengal, India, at roughly 1800 m and flowering in May, sits at the lower edge of this altitudinal band, typical of its occurrence beneath dense Himalayan forest canopy where it relies on consistent shade and well-drained organic soils.

It is a glabrous perennial herb arising from a stout, often moniliform (beaded) or fusiform fleshy rhizome that creeps horizontally. The single erect aerial stem bears a terminal whorl of (usually three to five) long-petiolate, palmately compound leaves, the leaflets characteristically deeply bipinnatifid or pinnately divided with the laminae much dissected, a feature that distinguishes the species and gives it its epithet. From the centre of the leaf whorl rises a slender peduncle terminating in a solitary, simple umbel of small greenish-white, pentamerous, mostly bisexual flowers with an inferior two-celled ovary and two styles. The fruit is a small, laterally compressed, red drupe that turns red at maturity, often with a black apical spot.

The genus Panax, the true ginsengs, is taxonomically complex in the Himalaya, where P. bipinnatifidus has historically been confused with P. pseudoginseng and treated under several varieties (var. bipinnatifidus, var. angustifolius) and synonyms; molecular and morphological work has helped clarify the dissected-leaved entity. Like its congeners it accumulates triterpenoid ginsenosides in the rhizome and is harvested as a substitute for ginseng across the Himalaya, which together with habitat loss exposes wild populations to over-collection. The species is consequently of growing conservation concern and is regarded as threatened or vulnerable in parts of its range, prompting interest in cultivation and sustainable management.

Author: Seem. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Wen's monograph of Panax (Araliaceae)

Melanthiaceae

Paris mairei

by GP Jürgens

H.Lév.

Sikkim2004 7 G12
Sikkim West-Bengal, Sambon 1800m April
Sikkim2004 115 P196
Sikkim West-Bengal, Sambon 1800m April
Nepal 97 265 G547
Nepal Bagong-Khola 2700m May

Description

Paris mairei is a rhizomatous woodland herb of the Sino-Himalayan region, distributed across SW China, Nepal, NE India and Bhutan, with GBIF documenting around 269 records. It is a plant of shaded, humus-rich forest, growing in moist broadleaved and coniferous woodland, thickets and shady ravines of the temperate zone. The photographed populations at Sambon in the Sikkim–West Bengal hills (1,800 m, April) and at Bagong Khola in Nepal (2,700 m, May) reflect its altitudinal span from the warm temperate to the upper temperate forest belt, where it flowers in spring as the canopy leafs out.

It is an erect perennial arising from a creeping, knotty rhizome, bearing a single terminal whorl of stalkless or shortly petiolate, ovate to lanceolate, net-veined leaves. From the centre of the whorl rises a solitary, long-pedicellate flower with the parts in the characteristic Paris arrangement: a whorl of green, leaf-like outer perianth segments (sepals), filiform or narrowly linear inner segments (petals), prominent stamens with the connective often produced beyond the anther, and a central ovary crowned by spreading stigmas. The fruit is a capsule that splits to expose seeds with a coloured fleshy aril.

The genus Paris (now placed in Melanthiaceae rather than the former Trilliaceae) is renowned for its steroidal saponins, several Asian species being important in traditional Chinese medicine, which has driven heavy wild collection and conservation concern in parts of the range. The single leaf whorl and solitary, spider-like flower make the genus instantly recognisable, while the contrast between broad sepaloid and thread-like petaloid segments is diagnostic at species level. P. mairei is distinguished within the genus by its leaf and floral proportions and stamen connective form.

Author: H.Lév. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Li: The Genus Paris (Paridaceae)

Melanthiaceae

Paris thibetica

by G & P Jürgens

Franch.

Bhutan2014 469
Bhutan Tongsa 2000m, May
Bhutan2014 586
Bhutan Phobjika 3100m, May

Description

Paris thibetica is a rhizomatous woodland herb of the eastern Himalaya and Sino-Himalayan region, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar, the Norwegian (NO) datum representing cultivated or herbarium material. Its roughly 281 georeferenced collections concentrate in the temperate forests of the Tibet-Himalaya borderlands. It grows in shaded, moist, humus-rich broadleaved and mixed forest, on banks and in damp ravines beneath the canopy. The photographed plants from Bhutan at Tongsa (2000 m) and Phobjika (3100 m), both in May, demonstrate its broad altitudinal range across the temperate belt and its spring flowering as the rhizome resumes growth after winter.

It is an erect perennial arising from a thick, creeping rhizome that produces a single unbranched stem. At the stem apex is a single whorl of typically four or more leaves, ovate-lanceolate to oblanceolate, with the netted-reticulate venation characteristic of the genus. From the centre of the whorl rises a solitary terminal flower on a slender pedicel. The perianth is in two distinct whorls: the outer of green, leaf-like sepals and the inner of very narrow, filiform to thread-like yellowish-green petals. Numerous stamens with elongate connectives surround a globose ovary crowned by spreading styles. The fruit is a capsule that opens to expose seeds borne in a fleshy, often reddish aril.

The genus Paris (herb-Paris) is placed in the Melanthiaceae (formerly Trilliaceae) and is centred on the temperate Sino-Himalayan mountains, where it is taxonomically intricate and much studied. Several species, including members of the Paris polyphylla complex to which P. thibetica is allied, are valued in traditional medicine for their steroidal saponins, exposing wild populations to harvesting pressure. Slow-growing and habitat-specific, herb-Paris species are increasingly of conservation concern owing to forest loss and over-collection.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Li's The Genus Paris (Trilliaceae)

Fabaceae

Parochetus communis

by GP Jürgens

Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don

Nepal 97 497 G979
Nepal Arun-Valley 1750m May
Nepal 97 336 P666
Nepal Arun-Valley 1750m May
Nepal 1994 58 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Bhalukhob 
1900m April

Description

Parochetus communis, the shamrock pea, is a creeping perennial legume with a remarkably wide Afro-Asian montane distribution. GBIF documents around 1730 occurrences spanning the Himalaya (Nepal, India, Bhutan, China), Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka), the East African highlands (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Malawi) and naturalised in New Zealand. It grows in moist grassland, forest clearings, streambanks, terrace edges and shaded turf, generally between 1500 and 3000 m. The photographed plants are from eastern Nepal at Bhalukhob (1900 m, April) and the Arun Valley (1750 m, May), where it carpets damp banks in spring.

The plant forms prostrate, rooting stems that spread into loose mats and root at the nodes. The leaves are trifoliolate and clover-like, the obcordate leaflets often marked with a darker band, borne on slender petioles with small stipules. The flowers are solitary or paired in the leaf axils, papilionaceous with a standard, wing and keel; the corolla is a vivid cobalt to gentian-blue, occasionally with paler markings, exceeding the tubular calyx. The fruit is a slender, linear-oblong legume that dehisces to release several small seeds.

Parochetus (Fabaceae, subfam. Faboideae) is a small genus historically treated as monotypic until the segregation of the African P. africanus, leaving Asian material under P. communis. GBIF treats the name as accepted. Its disjunct, sky-island range across Asian and African mountains makes it a classic subject in studies of tropical-alpine biogeography. Widespread and adaptable, it is of least concern and is also cultivated as an ornamental groundcover.

Author: Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Polhill studies of Papilionoid legumes

Asteraceae

Parthenium hysterophorus

by G & P Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2015 523
Bhutan Wangdi 1800m, October

Description

Parthenium hysterophorus is a neotropical annual of Central American and Caribbean origin that has become one of the world's most aggressive invasive weeds, GBIF recording nearly 39,000 occurrences spanning the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Australasia. It colonises waste ground, roadsides, overgrazed pasture, field margins and other disturbed, open habitats from the lowlands to mid-elevations, thriving on a wide range of soils. In the Eastern Himalaya it has spread along valley roads and settlements, the figured plant from Wangdi in central Bhutan at about 1800 m, photographed in October, documenting its ongoing upward and eastward expansion into mountain agricultural landscapes.

It is an erect, much-branched annual herb with longitudinally grooved, pubescent stems. The lower leaves are deeply bipinnatisect and form a basal rosette, while the upper leaves become smaller and less divided; all are softly hairy and bear glandular trichomes. The numerous small, whitish capitula are arranged in lax terminal panicles, each head containing five short, female ray florets and many functionally male disc florets. The involucre is shallow with two series of phyllaries. At maturity each ray achene falls together with two adjacent sterile disc florets and subtending bracts as a wedge-shaped dispersal unit bearing two small scale-like pappus elements.

A member of tribe Heliantheae, Parthenium hysterophorus is notorious for its prolific seed output, allelopathic suppression of neighbouring vegetation, and production of the sesquiterpene lactone parthenin, which causes contact dermatitis and respiratory allergy in humans and is toxic to livestock. Its invasion degrades rangeland and crops across the tropics and is the target of biological control using host-specific beetles and rusts. In the Himalayan region it is regarded as a serious emerging threat to biodiversity and pastoral livelihoods rather than a species of conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, CABI Invasive Species Compendium, Navie's monograph of Parthenium hysterophorus

Passifloraceae

Passiflora edulis

by GP Jürgens

Sims

Bh2008 493 G762
Bhutan Samtengang, 2200m April

Description

Passiflora edulis, the passion fruit, is a climbing vine native to subtropical South America (its core GBIF records cluster in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) but now pantropically cultivated and naturalised, with records spanning Australia, the United States, South Africa, India and China. In the Himalaya it occurs as an introduced and cultivated plant, and the photographed individual from Samtengang in Bhutan at 2200 m, flowering in April, reflects this cultivated status in warm-temperate hill country rather than a native occurrence. It thrives in disturbed ground, hedges, plantation margins and gardens, scrambling over supports in frost-free to mildly temperate conditions.

It is a woody, evergreen, tendril-climbing perennial vine with deeply three-lobed, glossy, serrate leaves bearing axillary tendrils by which it ascends. The solitary, axillary flowers are large and intricate, with five sepals and five petals subtending a conspicuous corona of long, wavy filaments, white above and banded purple toward the base. The androgynophore raises five stamens and a tricarpellate ovary with three styles above the corona, the whole structure famously interpreted as emblematic of the Passion. The fruit is a globose to ovoid berry, purple or yellow at maturity, with a tough leathery rind enclosing numerous arillate seeds in fragrant, juicy, edible pulp.

Passiflora is a large, predominantly Neotropical genus celebrated for its elaborate, often bee-, bird- or bat-pollinated flowers and for hosting specialised heliconiine butterfly larvae on its cyanogenic foliage. P. edulis is one of the most economically important species, grown commercially for its fruit, and exists in distinct purple-fruited and yellow-fruited forms. Vigorous and readily naturalising, it is regarded as a weedy invader in some warm regions, though in the Himalayan context it remains a cultivated introduction.

Author: Sims · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Killip's The American Species of Passifloraceae

Orobanchaceae

Pedicularis gracilis

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex Benth.

Bhutan2012 834
Bhutan Trongsa 1850m, October
Bhutan2012 1299
Bhutan Trashigang 1820m, October
Sikkim2003 388 P550
Sikkim Zemu Valley 3300m August

Description

Pedicularis gracilis Wall. ex Benth. is a hemiparasitic herb of the Himalaya and adjacent mountains, occurring across China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar. It is recorded from Bhutan at Trongsa and Trashigang between 1820 and 1850 m, flowering in October, and from the Zemu Valley in Sikkim at about 3300 m in August, spanning the warm temperate to subalpine zones. The species grows in open forest, scrub, grassy slopes, meadows and along stream banks, generally between 1500 and 3500 m, where, like all lousewort, it attaches to the roots of neighbouring plants as a facultative root hemiparasite. Its roughly 1008 GBIF records indicate a common and widely distributed species.

The plant is a slender, erect annual or short-lived perennial with a fibrous root system and a tall, sparingly branched stem. The leaves are alternate and pinnatisect, the segments themselves toothed or incised, giving a fern-like aspect. The flowers are borne in a long, lax, leafy-bracted terminal raceme; each has a tubular five-lobed calyx and a two-lipped corolla in pink to rose-purple, the upper lip (galea) hooded and beaked to enclose the four didynamous stamens, the lower lip three-lobed and spreading. The fruit is an obliquely ovoid, beaked capsule containing several seeds.

Pedicularis is one of the largest genera of the Sino-Himalaya, with the region a global centre of its diversity, and the intricate galea forms are closely tied to specialisation upon long-tongued bumblebee pollinators. As a hemiparasite the genus can influence community composition and is sensitive to changes in host vegetation. Being widespread and frequent, P. gracilis is of no particular conservation concern, though it serves as a useful indicator of intact montane grassland and forest-edge habitats.

Author: Wall. ex Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Pedicularis monographs (Prain; Tsoong)