Tag:

Montane (1500-2500 m)

Gentianaceae

Swertia cordata

by GP Jürgens

(G. Don) Wall. ex. C.B. Clarke

Bhutan2015 464
Bhutan Trongsa 2100m, October
Garw 2005 276 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2600m, September

Description

Swertia cordata is a Himalayan gentian relative ranging along the entire arc from Afghanistan and Pakistan through India, Nepal, Bhutan and into south-western China and Myanmar, documented by some 332 GBIF records. It favours moist, shaded banks, grassy forest clearings, stream margins and humid open slopes within the temperate zone, broadly between 1800 and 3000 m. The material illustrated from Trongsa in central Bhutan at 2100 m in October and from Kunol in the Garhwal Himalaya at 2600 m in September reflects its late-season flowering, when the post-monsoon humidity sustains the soft foliage of this short-lived herb.

It is an erect annual or biennial with a slender, quadrangular and often branched stem. The basal and lower cauline leaves are conspicuously cordate at the base and shortly petiolate, while the upper leaves become sessile and amplexicaul; all are thin, ovate and prominently veined. The flowers are borne in lax terminal and axillary cymose panicles, the corolla typically four-merged, rotate and pale blue to lilac with darker veining, each lobe bearing the nectary pits or foveae diagnostic of Swertia, fringed by scale-like appendages. The fruit is a septicidal capsule containing numerous small seeds.

Swertia is a large, taxonomically demanding genus widely exploited in Himalayan ethnomedicine for its bitter secoiridoid glycosides, and S. cordata shares this chemistry. The basal foveae govern a specialised pollination relationship in which nectar is hidden beneath protective fringes. The species is not regarded as threatened given its wide distribution, but collection for medicinal use and habitat loss along forest margins warrant monitoring of accessible populations.

Author: (G. Don) Wall. ex. C.B. Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Flora of China (Gentianaceae), Revision of the genus Swertia

Gentianaceae

Swertia macrosperma

by GP Jürgens

(C.B. Clarke) C.B. Clarke

Bhutan2015 31
Bhutan Thimphu 2300m, October
Bhutan2012 321
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3100m September
Bhutan2012 322
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3100m September

Description

Swertia macrosperma is a widespread gentian-family herb of Asia, exceptionally well represented in GBIF with about 1613 occurrences spanning Taiwan, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Japan and beyond. It is a plant of open, moist montane settings, growing on grassy slopes, forest margins, clearings, banks and damp meadows in the temperate to lower subalpine belt. The material photographed in Bhutan, at Thimphu around 2300 m in October and at the Dochu-La pass near 3100 m in September, illustrates its autumn flowering season, when these post-monsoon slopes carry the late display typical of many Himalayan swertias.

It is an erect annual to biennial herb with slender, often quadrangular and branched stems arising from a basal rosette of leaves. The cauline leaves are opposite, sessile to shortly petiolate and ovate to lanceolate. The flowers are borne in lax terminal and axillary cymes forming a diffuse panicle; each is usually four- or five-merous with a rotate, deeply parted corolla that is whitish, pale greenish or tinged with purple and frequently spotted, and each corolla lobe bears one or two fringed nectary glands (foveolae) diagnostic of the genus. The fruit is a septicidal capsule that, as the epithet indicates, releases comparatively large seeds.

Swertia is a large genus of tribe Swertieae, distinguished from Gentiana by its rotate, deeply divided corolla and conspicuous nectary pits. Several species, including this one, are gathered for traditional medicine on account of their bitter secoiridoid compounds. As an abundant and ecologically tolerant species across a vast range, S. macrosperma is of no conservation concern, though localised harvesting pressure on bitter Swertia species is documented elsewhere in the genus.

Author: (C.B. Clarke) C.B. Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Ho & Pringle Gentianaceae revision

Gentianaceae

Swertia nervosa

by GP Jürgens

(G.Don) Wall. ex. C.B.Clarke

Garw 2005 242 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Bora 2200m, September

Description

Swertia nervosa is an annual gentian-relative widely distributed across the Himalaya and montane Southeast Asia, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Taiwan, with around 331 occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of moist open slopes, grassy banks, forest clearings, streamsides and disturbed ground in the subtropical to lower temperate belt, typically between 1500 and 2800 m. The photograph from Bora in Garhwal, India, at about 2200 m in September shows it in flower at the close of the monsoon, the period when the genus reaches its peak of flowering across the mid-elevation Himalaya.

The plant is an erect annual herb with an angular, often four-winged or ridged stem branching in the upper part. The leaves are opposite, sessile, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate and conspicuously several-nerved, the prominent venation reflected in the epithet nervosa. The numerous small flowers are borne in a lax, much-branched terminal panicle; they are usually four-merous with a deeply parted, pale yellowish to greenish corolla often marked with purplish veins, and each lobe bears a fringed nectary gland at its base, a diagnostic feature of Swertia. The fruit is an ovoid bivalved capsule containing many minute seeds.

Swertia is a large genus of the Gentianaceae centred on the Sino-Himalayan region, distinguished by the nectariferous glands (foveae) on the corolla lobes; S. nervosa belongs to the annual, paniculate-flowered group sometimes segregated under Ophelia. Like several relatives it is rich in bitter secoiridoid compounds and is used in traditional medicine as a substitute for the famed chiretta (S. chirayita). Common, weedy and broadly distributed, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: (G.Don) Wall. ex. C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Clarke's treatment of Gentianaceae in Flora of British India

Asteraceae

Symphyotrichum laeve

by GP Jürgens

(L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve

Bhutan2012 1254
Bhutan Trashigang 1720m, October

Description

Symphyotrichum laeve, the smooth blue aster, is native to North America, where GBIF records its overwhelming abundance (15,822 occurrences) across the United States, Canada and Mexico. It is also widely naturalised in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Britain, Belgium and beyond) and is recorded as an introduced ornamental elsewhere. In its native range it occupies dry to mesic prairies, open woodland, glades and roadsides. The image was taken at Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 1720 m in October, where the plant occurs as a cultivated or escaped garden ornamental rather than as a member of the indigenous Himalayan flora.

It is a glabrous, often glaucous perennial herb arising from a short rhizome or caudex, with erect stems to about 1 m. The leaves are alternate, firm and smooth, the lower oblanceolate and tapering to a winged petiole, the upper sessile and clasping with an auriculate base, the margins entire to remotely toothed. The inflorescence is an open paniculiform array of numerous capitula subtended by appressed, imbricate phyllaries with diamond-shaped green tips. Each head bears blue to violet ray florets surrounding yellow disc florets that age to purplish; the achenes are ribbed and crowned by a tawny pappus of capillary bristles.

Formerly placed in Aster, the species was transferred to Symphyotrichum by Á. Löve & D. Löve following molecular evidence dismantling the broad genus Aster, which is now restricted to Old World taxa. Smooth aster is a popular late-season ornamental and pollinator plant. It is secure throughout its native range and behaves as a benign garden escape in temperate regions worldwide.

Author: (L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of North America, Flora of Bhutan, Symphyotrichum revision (Nesom), Asteraceae of North America

Symplocaceae

Symplocos cochinchinensis

by G & P Jürgens

S.Moore

Nepal 97 95 P157
Nepal Dongen 2300m April
Nepal 97 94 P155
Nepal Dongen 2300m April

Description

Symplocos cochinchinensis is one of the most widely distributed members of the Symplocaceae, with an extraordinary pantropical range extending from West Africa across Madagascar and the Indian subcontinent through mainland and insular Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and into the western Pacific islands. GBIF records nearly 5,840 occurrences from more than 20 countries. In the Himalayas, the species inhabits subtropical and warm-temperate evergreen broadleaved forests at 800–2,500 m elevation. At Dongen in eastern Nepal at 2,300 m, it occurs in the canopy and sub-canopy layer of Schima–Castanopsis forests, where it flowers in the pre-monsoon month of April.
Symplocos cochinchinensis is an evergreen tree or large shrub, typically 5–15 m tall, occasionally reaching 25 m. The bark is smooth, greyish-brown. Leaves are alternate, elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 7–15 cm long, with an acuminate apex, cuneate base, and serrate to crenate-serrate margins; the upper surface is glabrous and dark green, while the lower surface may be sparsely pubescent along the midrib. The inflorescence is an axillary raceme or panicle, 3–8 cm long, bearing numerous small, fragrant white flowers. Each flower has a five-lobed calyx, five petals fused at the base, and numerous stamens (20–60) in several series. The fruit is a cylindric to ovoid drupe, 5–8 mm long, dark blue to black at maturity, crowned by the persistent calyx lobes.
The vast geographical range of Symplocos cochinchinensis has led to considerable infraspecific taxonomic complexity, and numerous varieties and subspecies have been described. The treatment in POWO recognises several subspecies, with the Himalayan populations generally referred to subsp. laurina. The species is ecologically significant as a component of mid-elevation broadleaved forests across the Old World tropics and plays a role in forest regeneration on disturbed sites. In parts of South and Southeast Asia, the leaves and bark have traditional uses as a mordant in textile dyeing owing to their high aluminium content.

Author: S.Moore · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Nepal Checklist, Nooteboom: Symplocaceae in Flora Malesiana Ser. I, Vol. 8 (1977)

Symplocaceae

Symplocos lucida

by GP Jürgens

Siebold & Zucc.

Bhutan2015 531
Bhutan Phobjika 2450m, October
Bhutan2015 529
Bhutan Phobjika 2450m, October

Description

Symplocos lucida is a broadly distributed evergreen of eastern and southern Asia, occurring from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan through Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to the Himalayan countries of Nepal, India and Bhutan; its more than 413 GBIF records reflect this wide range, with the United States accessions cultivated or herbarium-based. It grows in evergreen broad-leaved and mixed mid-montane forests, on forest margins and shrubby slopes, generally between about 1500 and 2800 m. The photographed tree at Phobjika in central Bhutan at 2450 m in October illustrates its occurrence in cool, humid temperate forest of the eastern Himalaya.

It is an evergreen shrub or small tree with smooth grey bark and glabrous young shoots. The alternate, leathery leaves are elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, glossy (whence lucida) and dark green above, with a serrate to crenate margin and a short petiole. The flowers are small, white and fragrant, borne in short axillary spikes or racemes; each has a five-lobed calyx and corolla and numerous stamens fused in fascicles at the base. The fruit is a small, ovoid to oblong drupe, dark blue-black or purplish when ripe, crowned by the persistent calyx and enclosing a single hard stone.

Symplocos is the sole genus of the Symplocaceae, a pantropical to warm-temperate family of some hundreds of species centred on Asia. S. lucida belongs to a taxonomically complex aggregate, and its leaves and bark have a long history of use as a mordant (aluminium-accumulating) source in natural dyeing. Widespread and ecologically plastic, it is not considered threatened, though its forest habitats face regional pressure from logging and land conversion.

Author: Siebold & Zucc. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Japan, Symplocaceae revision (Nooteboom monograph)

Symplocaceae

Symplocos paniculata

by GP Jürgens

Miq.

Bhutan2014 663
Bhutan Phobjika 2250m, May
Bhutan2014 664
Bhutan Phobjika 2250m, May
Bh2008 58 P96
Bhutan Punakha 2400m, April

Description

Symplocos paniculata is a widely distributed eastern Asian shrub or small tree ranging from the Himalaya (Nepal, Bhutan, northeast India) across China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, with extensive cultivated and naturalised records elsewhere; GBIF documents 9858 occurrences spanning these and many other countries. In the Himalaya it grows in temperate broad-leaved and mixed forests, forest margins, scrub and open hillsides, generally between about 1500 and 2800 m. The photographed plants from Phobjika in Bhutan at 2250 m in May and from Punakha at 2400 m in April show it flowering in spring, when the white, fragrant blossoms appear ahead of full leaf expansion in the temperate Bhutanese valleys.

It is a deciduous shrub or small tree with grey, often lenticellate bark and finely pubescent young twigs. The alternate leaves are elliptic to obovate, acuminate, with a serrulate to crenate-serrate margin and pinnate venation. The fragrant white flowers are borne in terminal and axillary panicles; each flower has a five-lobed calyx, a deeply five-parted corolla and numerous stamens that are basally connate into fascicles, giving the inflorescence a feathery appearance. The fruit is a small ovoid to ellipsoid drupe ripening blue-black to deep blue, crowned by the persistent calyx and containing a single hard stone.

The species belongs to Symplocos, the sole genus of the family Symplocaceae, a group of Old and New World woody plants noted for accumulating aluminium and historically valued as mordant ("sapphire-berry") plants whose bark and leaves were used in dyeing. The blue, lipid-rich drupes are dispersed by frugivorous birds. Common, ecologically tolerant and widely planted as an ornamental, S. paniculata is of least conservation concern across its extensive natural range.

Author: Miq. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Revision of the Asiatic Symplocaceae (Nooteboom)

Symplocaceae

Symplocos ramosissima

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex G. Don

Garh 07 236 ergebnis
India Garhwal Barron Chatti 2450m, June
Garh 07 237 ergebnis
India Garhwal Barron Chatti 2450m, June

Description

Symplocos ramosissima is an evergreen shrub or small tree widely distributed through the Sino-Himalayan and Indochinese region, with GBIF recording around 1472 occurrences across China, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. It is a characteristic component of moist broad-leaved evergreen and mixed temperate forests, occurring on humid slopes, ridge forests and forest margins generally between 1500 and 3000 m. The individual photographed at Barron Chatti in Garhwal, India, at about 2450 m in June sits within this mid-montane band, where the species forms part of the dense understorey and lower-canopy layer of laurel-oak and rhododendron-rich forests on the southern Himalayan flank.

Morphologically it is a much-branched evergreen with glabrous or finely pubescent young twigs and alternate, simple, coriaceous leaves; the blades are elliptic to lanceolate, with a serrate to crenate-serrate margin and an acuminate apex. The flowers are small, white, fragrant and borne in short axillary spikes or racemes, each with a persistent calyx, a rotate to shortly campanulate corolla of five lobes and numerous stamens fused into fascicles at the base, the pollination biology favouring small generalist insects. The fruit is a small ovoid to cylindric drupe, blue-black to purplish when ripe, crowned by the persistent calyx lobes and containing a hard stone, dispersed largely by frugivorous birds.

The family Symplocaceae comprises the single large genus Symplocos, a taxonomically intricate group well represented in the Himalaya and East Asia. The genus is notable for accumulating aluminium and for the yellow dye historically obtained from the bark and leaves of several species, which were used as mordants in traditional textile dyeing. As a common and ecologically wide-ranging forest element, S. ramosissima is not considered threatened, though its dependence on intact mid-elevation evergreen forest links its local persistence to the conservation of those increasingly fragmented montane habitats.

Author: Wall. ex G. Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Nooteboom Revision of Symplocaceae of the Old World

Asteraceae

Tagetes minuta

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2015 523
Bhutan Phobjika 2410m, October

Description

Tagetes minuta L. is native to the temperate grasslands and lower Andes of southern South America but is now a pantropical and warm-temperate weed; GBIF lists over 16,000 occurrences spanning Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, the United States, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, India, Korea, Saudi Arabia and Australia. It is a ruderal colonist of cultivated ground, roadsides, waste places and field margins. The record from Phobjika at 2410 m in October shows its naturalisation in the Bhutan Himalaya, where it flowers late in the season on disturbed and abandoned ground.

It is a tall erect annual herb reaching well over a metre, with a strongly aromatic, glandular-punctate foliage. The stems are ribbed and branched above; the leaves are opposite below and alternate above, pinnately divided into numerous lanceolate, sharply serrate leaflets dotted with conspicuous oil glands. The small, narrow, cylindrical capitula are clustered in dense flat-topped corymbs; each head has a single series of fused involucral bracts, few inconspicuous pale-yellow ray florets and several tubular disc florets. The fruit is a slender black cypsela bearing a pappus of a few short scales, some awned.

The oil glands yield the volatile "tagetes oil" used commercially and in traditional medicine, and the plant has well-documented allelopathic and nematicidal properties exploited in companion planting. A highly successful colonising annual, T. minuta is classed as an invasive or noxious weed in several regions and is of no conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of North America, Soule taxonomic revision of Tagetes

Loranthaceae

Taxillus kaempferi

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Danser

Bh09 415 P653
Bhutan Paro, 2400m June

Description

Taxillus kaempferi is a stem-hemiparasitic mistletoe ranging from Japan and Taiwan across China to the eastern Himalaya, with GBIF records from Japan, China, Taiwan, Bhutan and India. It parasitises the branches of trees and shrubs, particularly conifers such as Pinus and Tsuga as well as various broad-leaved hosts, in temperate montane forest generally between 1,500 and 2,800 m. The photographed plant grows near Paro in western Bhutan at about 2,400 m in June, representing the species at the western limit of its distribution in the Himalayan conifer belt.

The plant forms a pendent to spreading shrub attached to the host branch by a haustorial union and often by epicortical runners. The young branchlets, leaf undersides and inflorescences are clothed in a dense rusty to reddish stellate or dendritic tomentum, a key generic feature. The leaves are leathery, alternate to subopposite, ovate to elliptic with entire margins. The flowers are borne in short axillary umbels or racemes; each has a tubular, four-merous corolla that is reddish to orange and curved, splitting into recurved lobes at anthesis to expose the stamens, and is pollinated chiefly by birds. The fruit is a one-seeded berry with viscid pulp, dispersed by frugivorous birds that wipe the sticky seed onto new branches.

Taxillus belongs to the Loranthaceae, the showy aerial-parasite family, and is distinguished from related genera by its tomentum, umbellate inflorescence and floral structure. As a hemiparasite it retains chlorophyll while drawing water and minerals from the host. Though it can locally affect host vigour, T. kaempferi is a natural and widespread forest element, ecologically valuable as a nectar and fruit resource, and is not of conservation concern.

Author: (DC.) Danser · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5 (Loranthaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Barlow: Loranthaceae of Asia (taxonomic revisions)