Tag:

Montane (1500-2500 m)

Stachyuraceae

Stachyurus himalaicus

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson ex. Benth.

Bh2008 17 P30
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Nepal 97 125 G217
Nepal Mewa-Khola 2470m April

Description

Stachyurus himalaicus is a Sino-Himalayan shrub distributed from Nepal and northern India through Bhutan, northern Myanmar and southern China to Taiwan, with around 4100 GBIF occurrences and a peripheral introduced presence in Japan, Korea and cultivation in Belgium. It grows in moist broad-leaved and mixed evergreen forest, along streamsides, forest margins and shrubby slopes in the warm-temperate to lower cool-temperate belt, roughly 1500 to 3000 m. The plants recorded along the Thimphu-Chu in Bhutan at 2800 m and at Mewa-Khola in Nepal at 2470 m, both flowering in April before leaf expansion, exemplify its precocious early-spring display on humid montane slopes.

It is a deciduous shrub or small tree with reddish-brown, glabrous, lenticellate branchlets. The leaves are alternate, ovate-lanceolate to oblong, acuminate, with serrate to serrulate margins and a slender petiole, the young foliage sometimes flushed reddish. Its diagnostic feature is the inflorescence: stiff, pendent, spike-like racemes produced from the leafless nodes, each bearing numerous small, shortly pedicellate, bell-shaped pale yellow flowers with four sepals, four petals and eight stamens. The superior ovary develops into a small, globose, leathery to fleshy berry containing many minute seeds embedded in pulp.

Stachyurus is the sole genus of the small family Stachyuraceae, an isolated lineage within the Crossosomatales, and S. himalaicus is its principal Himalayan representative, distinguished from the Chinese S. chinensis by leaf and inflorescence characters. The pre-foliar flowering exploits an open canopy and attracts early-season bees, while the berries are bird-dispersed. The species is common and not of conservation concern.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson ex. Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of the Genus Stachyurus (Stachyuraceae)

Ranunculaceae

Stauntonia latifolia

by G & P Jürgens

(Wall.) R.Br. ex. Wall.

Bhutan2012 357
Bhutan Dochu-La 2900m, September
Bhutan2014 609
Bhutan Phobjika 3100m, May
Sikkim2004 26 P41
Sikkim West-Bengal, Sambon 1850m April

Description

Stauntonia latifolia is a Himalayan woody climber distributed through China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, with GBIF aggregating some 517 occurrences across the warm temperate belt. It is a liana of moist broad-leaved and mixed forest, scrambling over shrubs and into the canopy along forest margins, ravines and streamsides typically between about 1500 and 3100 m. The accompanying records span this range well, from Sambon on the Sikkim–West Bengal border at 1850 m in April, through the Dochu-La in Bhutan at 2900 m in September, to Phobjika at 3100 m flowering in May, reflecting an extended phenology across elevation and longitude in the eastern Himalaya.

The family is here cited as Ranunculaceae, but the plant in fact belongs to the Lardizabalaceae; the description follows the true affinity. It is an evergreen twining climber with palmately compound leaves of three to seven leathery, entire, ovate to elliptic leaflets borne on long petioles. The plant is functionally monoecious, the flowers unisexual and borne in axillary racemes; they are greenish-white to purplish, lacking true petals, the showy parts being six sepals in two whorls, with six stamens in male flowers and three carpels in female ones. The fruit is a fleshy, oblong, purple berry-like follicle, edible and sweet, containing numerous black seeds embedded in a juicy pulp.

The taxon was described by Wallich and is widely treated under the synonym Holboellia latifolia, the generic limits between Holboellia and Stauntonia having been repeatedly debated and revised; under recent circumscriptions the Himalayan plant is placed in Stauntonia. The Lardizabalaceae are a small east-Asian and Chilean family of considerable phylogenetic interest as an early-diverging lineage of the Ranunculales. The succulent fruits are locally gathered and eaten and serve to disperse the seeds via birds and mammals; the species is common and faces no significant conservation concern.

Author: (Wall.) R.Br. ex. Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, monographic studies of Lardizabalaceae (Holboellia and Stauntonia)

Caryophyllaceae

Stellaria vestita

by GP Jürgens

Kurz

Bhutan2014 1072
Bhutan Paro 2400m, May

Description

Stellaria vestita is a widespread chickweed of tropical and subtropical Asia, ranging from the Himalaya through southern China and Taiwan to Indochina, the Malesian archipelago, the Philippines and New Guinea, and eastward to Japan and Korea; GBIF records over 2,000 occurrences. It grows in open forest, scrub, grassy slopes, hedgerows and disturbed ground, generally from low elevations to about 2,800 m. The individual photographed near Paro in western Bhutan at 2,400 m in May reflects its presence in the temperate mid-montane belt of the eastern Himalaya, on moist, partially shaded banks and forest margins.

It is a perennial herb with weak, ascending to straggling stems 30-90 cm long, terete and densely clothed throughout with spreading white hairs, hence the epithet vestita ('clothed'). The leaves are opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 1-4 cm long, acuminate and pubescent on both surfaces. The inflorescence is a lax, dichasial cyme of several flowers on slender pedicels. Each flower has five lanceolate, pubescent sepals and five white petals deeply cleft nearly to the base into two lobes, the petals about equalling the calyx; there are typically ten stamens and three styles. The fruit is an ovoid capsule dehiscing by six valves and containing several reniform, tuberculate seeds.

Within the large and taxonomically complex genus Stellaria, S. vestita is recognised by its dense indumentum, deeply bifid petals and pantropical Asian distribution, features separating it from the S. media group and from glabrous montane species. The deeply two-lobed white petals are typical of the genus and aid pollination by small insects, while the many-seeded capsules favour effective local dispersal. As a common, weedy and ecologically tolerant species occupying a wide range of habitats and elevations, it is of least concern and faces no recognised conservation threat.

Author: Kurz · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Caryophyllaceae monograph

Malvaceae

Sterculia villosa

by GP Jürgens

Roxb.

Bhutan2014 253
Bhutan Karu-Chu 1800m, May
Bhutan2014 264
Bhutan Karu-Chu 1800m, May

Description

Sterculia villosa is a deciduous tree widely distributed across tropical and subtropical Asia, from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka eastward through Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, southern China and into Malesia (Malaysia, Indonesia), with the 452 GBIF records reflecting both this native range and cultivated or naturalised occurrences elsewhere. It is a tree of monsoon and deciduous forest, riverine valleys and disturbed slopes at low to moderate elevations, generally below about 1500 m though reaching higher in warm valleys. The photographed individual from the Karu-Chu valley in Bhutan at around 1800 m, flowering in May before or with the new leaves, marks the upper, warm-temperate edge of its range.

The tree has a straight bole, grey bark and stout branches, the young parts densely clad in soft tawny villous hairs from which the epithet derives. The large, alternate leaves are palmately lobed with 5-7 broad lobes, cordate at the base and long-petioled, hairy beneath. The flowers, borne in much-branched velvety panicles, are apetalous, with a campanulate, lobed, reddish to greenish-yellow calyx; the species is andromonoecious with a central androgynophore. The fruit is the characteristic sterculiaceous group of large, woody, beaked, velvety follicles that dehisce to expose black seeds against a red interior.

Formerly placed in Sterculiaceae, the genus Sterculia is now treated within an enlarged Malvaceae (subfamily Sterculioideae), as adopted here. S. villosa is economically valued for its strong bast fibre, used for ropes and cordage, and yields a gum; its bark and seeds feature in local medicine. As a fast-growing, light-demanding species of disturbed and secondary forest it is widespread and not of conservation concern, though it is locally significant in agroforestry and as a host for lac and silk insects.

Author: Roxb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Flora of China, Kostermans Sterculiaceae monograph

Acanthaceae

Strobilanthes atropurpurea

by G & P Jürgens

Nees

Garw 2005 247 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Sitel 1850m, September

Description

Strobilanthes atropurpurea Nees is a robust perennial herb of the Acanthaceae, distributed along the Himalaya from Pakistan and India through Nepal and Bhutan to southwestern China, with further records reaching Myanmar and Vietnam (GBIF: c. 328 occurrences). It is a characteristic understorey and forest-margin plant of moist temperate broad-leaved and mixed forests, favouring shaded, humid ravines and stream banks. The illustrated plant from Sitel in Garhwal, western India, at about 1,850 m and flowering in September, reflects its typical late-monsoon flowering in the mid-montane forest belt.

The plant is an erect, branched herb or subshrub reaching 0.5–1.5 m, with quadrangular stems often swollen at the nodes. The leaves are opposite and decussate, the pairs frequently unequal (anisophyllous), ovate to elliptic, acuminate, with crenate-serrate margins and prominent venation; cystoliths are usually visible as fine streaks on the leaf surface. The inflorescence is a terminal or axillary spike or panicle of cymose clusters subtended by bracts. The flowers have a tubular-funnelform corolla that is deep violet to purple, five-lobed and slightly two-lipped, with four didynamous stamens. The fruit is an explosively dehiscent capsule bearing few seeds on hooked retinacula.

Strobilanthes is a large, taxonomically difficult genus noted for gregarious, often plietesial (mast) flowering, in which many individuals bloom synchronously after several years and then die. Such cohort dynamics complicate field identification and herbarium representation. The species is locally common and not considered threatened, though its forest habitat is subject to regional degradation.

Author: Nees · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Wood & Scotland: Strobilanthes monograph

Acanthaceae

Strobilanthes lachenensis

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2015 654
Bhutan Semkota 2000m, October
Bhutan2015 653
Bhutan Semkota 2000m, October

Description

Strobilanthes lachenensis C.B.Clarke is a shrubby herb of the Acanthaceae endemic to the eastern Himalaya and adjacent ranges, recorded from China, Nepal, India and Bhutan, with about 125 GBIF occurrences. It grows in the understorey and along the margins of temperate broad-leaved and mixed forest, on shaded slopes, banks and forest clearings, mainly between about 1800 and 2800 m. It was documented in Bhutan at Semkota near 2000 m in October, an autumn flowering that accords with the often gregarious, plietesial flowering behaviour characteristic of many Himalayan Strobilanthes, in which populations bloom synchronously after several years of vegetative growth.

It is an erect, branched perennial or subshrub with quadrangular stems that are swollen at the nodes. The leaves are opposite and conspicuously anisophyllous, the pair unequal, elliptic to lanceolate, acuminate, with crenate-serrate margins and cystoliths visible as fine streaks on the surface. The flowers are borne in spike-like or capitate inflorescences subtended by bracts; the bilabiate, funnel-shaped corolla is blue to pale violet, curved and slightly inflated at the throat, enclosing four didynamous stamens. The fruit is an elongate, two-valved capsule that dehisces explosively, ejecting a few flattened seeds borne on hooked retinacula.

Strobilanthes is a large and taxonomically complex genus centred on tropical and subtropical Asia, and the Sino-Himalayan species such as S. lachenensis form part of an intricate, much-revised assemblage. Its mass-flowering, bee-pollinated reproductive strategy and the type locality at Lachen in Sikkim, from which the epithet derives, anchor it in the eastern Himalayan flora. The species is forest-dependent and locally distributed, making it potentially sensitive to habitat disturbance, though it is not formally assessed.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Strobilanthes monograph (Wood; Carine & Scotland revision of Strobilanthes)

Styracaceae

Styrax japonicus

by G & P Jürgens

Siebold & Zucc.

Sikkim 2006 330 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Tolung 2450m, May

Description

Styrax japonicus, the Japanese snowbell, is a deciduous shrub or small tree of the Styracaceae, distributed through temperate East Asia and extending into the eastern Himalaya. GBIF data (over 16,000 occurrences) reflect its native range across Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Myanmar and the eastern Himalaya, together with extensive cultivation in temperate gardens worldwide. In the wild it grows in deciduous and mixed broadleaved forest, on slopes, along streams and at forest margins, in the warm-temperate to lower montane belt. The collection from Tolung in West Bengal at 2,450 m in May illustrates its occurrence in the moist montane forests of the eastern Himalaya at flowering time.

The tree reaches up to about 10 m, with smooth grey bark and slender, often horizontally spreading branches. The leaves are alternate, simple, ovate to elliptic, with a finely serrate margin and an acuminate apex. The flowers are pendulous and borne singly or in few-flowered racemes from the leaf axils on slender pedicels; the white, bell-shaped corolla is deeply five-lobed and fragrant, subtended by a small cupular calyx, with about ten stamens forming a central column of yellow anthers. The fruit is an ovoid to subglobose, greyish, slightly tomentose drupaceous capsule containing usually a single hard seed.

The Styracaceae is a small family of woody plants notable as a source of aromatic balsamic resins (benzoin, storax) yielded by certain Styrax species. S. japonicus is among the most widely planted ornamentals of the family, valued for its profuse, snowbell-like spring flowers. Its disjunct occurrence in the eastern Himalaya is of biogeographic interest, reflecting the floristic links between the Sino-Japanese region and the eastern Himalaya; though broadly secure, its forest populations there depend on intact montane woodland.

Author: Siebold & Zucc. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Hwang & Grimes: Styracaceae – Flora of China account

Styracaceae

Styrax serrulatus

by GP Jürgens

Roxb.

Nepal 97 399 P770
Nepal Arun-Valley 1750m April
Nepal 97 400 P771
Nepal Arun-Valley 1750m April

Description

Styrax serrulatus is a small tree or shrub of the eastern Himalaya and mainland Southeast Asia, distributed from India and Nepal through Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and southern China to Malaysia and Indonesia, with around 395 GBIF records (the few from Korea and the United States reflecting cultivation). It grows in subtropical to lower-temperate broad-leaved evergreen and mixed forest, forest margins and along streams, generally between about 1,000 and 2,400 m. The plant photographed in the Arun Valley of eastern Nepal at 1,750 m, flowering in April, exemplifies its spring anthesis in the warm, humid mid-elevation forests of the eastern Himalaya.

The plant is a deciduous to semi-evergreen shrub or small tree, the young branchlets, buds and lower leaf surfaces clothed in characteristic stellate hairs. The leaves are alternate, simple, elliptic to ovate-oblong with finely serrulate margins (as the epithet indicates), shortly petiolate and acuminate. The flowers are borne in short axillary or terminal racemes; each is white and fragrant, with a five-lobed campanulate calyx and a five-lobed, deeply divided corolla, the ten stamens united at the base into a short tube. The fruit is a subglobose, dry to leathery drupe-like capsule, often crowned by the persistent calyx, containing one or few seeds.

Styrax is the principal genus of the family Styracaceae, several species of which yield aromatic resins (benzoin). The genus has a notable disjunct distribution between eastern Asia and the Americas, and S. serrulatus belongs to its species-rich Asian assemblage. Widespread and occurring in both primary and secondary forest, it is not considered threatened.

Author: Roxb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Hwang & Grimes: Styracaceae monographic treatments

Fabaceae

Sunhangia elegans

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi.

Bhutan2014 125
Bhutan Trashigang 1570m, May
Bhutan2014 126
Bhutan Trashigang 1570m, May

Description

Sunhangia elegans—long familiar as Desmodium elegans—is a shrubby legume widely distributed through the Himalaya and adjoining mountains of China, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bhutan, with around 1611 occurrence records; the scatter of points in distant countries largely reflects cultivation and naturalisation of this popular ornamental. It grows on open hillsides, forest margins, scrub, roadsides and disturbed slopes, mostly in the warm-temperate to subtropical montane belt. The illustrated plant from Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 1570 m, flowering in May, sits within this characteristic mid-elevation habitat.

It is a deciduous shrub with arching, much-branched stems bearing trifoliolate leaves; the leaflets are rhombic-ovate to broadly elliptic, the terminal one largest, green above and paler and finely pubescent beneath. The inflorescences are terminal and axillary panicles of many papilionaceous flowers ranging from pale lilac and pink to purple, with the typical standard, wing and keel petals and diadelphous stamens. The fruit is a flattened, jointed loment constricted between the seeds and breaking into one-seeded articles whose hooked hairs cling to fur and clothing, effecting epizoochorous dispersal.

The genus Desmodium has recently been dismembered on molecular evidence, with several Asiatic species transferred by H. Ohashi and K. Ohashi to segregate genera, here placed in Sunhangia, with the accepted combination Sunhangia elegans. Like other members of the tribe Desmodieae it forms root nodules with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, enriching poor montane soils, and is valued both as fodder and as a hardy garden shrub. It is widespread and faces no recognised conservation concern.

Author: (DC.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Fabaceae), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Grierson & Long Flora of Bhutan, Ohashi & Ohashi's revision of the Desmodium group (Leguminosae)

Gentianaceae

Swertia bimaculata

by GP Jürgens

(Siebold & Zucc.) Hook. f. & Thomson ex C.B. Clarke

Bhutan2012 354
Bhutan Doch-La, 3000m September
Bhutan2012 355
Bhutan Doch-La, 3000m September
Bh2008 65 P106
Bhutan Punaka-Chu, 1600m April

Description

Swertia bimaculata is a widely distributed Asian gentian recorded by GBIF in nearly 3,942 occurrences spanning China, Japan, Korea, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, making it one of the most far-ranging members of its genus. It occupies forest margins, grassy slopes, meadows and streamsides over a broad altitudinal span from lowland valleys to the subalpine zone. The Bhutanese collections illustrated, one from the Dochu La at 3000 m flowering in September and another from the Punakha Chu at 1600 m in April, demonstrate both its wide elevational tolerance and a flowering season extended by the diversity of habitats it occupies.

The species is a tall, erect annual or biennial herb with an angular, often branched stem arising from a slender taproot. The leaves are opposite, sessile to short-petiolate and broadly elliptic to lanceolate, with prominent arcuate veins. Flowers are numerous in a large, lax terminal panicle; the corolla is rotate and deeply four- to five-lobed, the lobes pale greenish-white to yellowish and finely dotted or streaked with purple. Each lobe bears two conspicuous dark glandular nectaries—the paired "two spots" of the epithet bimaculata—fringed with long fimbriae. The superior ovary develops into a narrowly ovoid septicidal capsule releasing many small seeds.

Swertia is a taxonomically complex, pharmacologically notable genus whose bitter secoiridoid-rich species are widely used in traditional Asian medicine, and S. bimaculata is among those harvested for such purposes. The fringed nectary glands and spotted corolla attract bees and flies that effect cross-pollination. Despite its medicinal exploitation the species remains common and ecologically plastic across its enormous range and is not regarded as threatened.

Author: (Siebold & Zucc.) Hook. f. & Thomson ex C.B. Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Japan, Revision of the Genus Swertia (Hara)