Tag:

Myanmar

Flowers of the Myanmar Himalaya — 604 species recorded from northern Myanmar (Burma) and the eastern Himalayan borderlands, a biodiversity hotspot linking the Himalaya to the mountains of Yunnan and Southeast Asia. The region’s forests and alpine slopes hold a rich flora of rhododendrons, orchids, balsams and gentians. Every page gives a botanical description, distribution, habitat and flowering time with the original photograph.

Asteraceae

Lactuca dolichophylla 

by G & P Jürgens

Kitam.

Garw 2005 68 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Valley of flowers 3200m, September

Description

Lactuca dolichophylla is a Himalayan and Central Asian perennial herb distributed through the Indian Himalaya, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, southern China, Afghanistan, Russia and Myanmar, documented from a modest number of georeferenced collections. It is a plant of the subalpine and alpine zone, growing on open grassy slopes, herb-rich meadows, forest clearings and stony banks. The photographed material is from the Valley of Flowers in Garhwal, India, at about 3200 m in September, a celebrated high-montane meadow habitat where the species flowers in the late post-monsoon season.

The plant is an erect perennial herb with a leafy, often glaucous stem exuding milky latex when cut. The leaves are elongate and narrow, as the epithet 'dolichophylla' (long-leaved) implies, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, entire to runcinate-lobed, with the upper leaves sessile and often clasping. The capitula are arranged in a lax paniculate-corymbose synflorescence; each head is ligulate, with an imbricate cylindrical involucre and several blue to bluish-purple or violet ray florets, a colour characteristic of the Himalayan blue-flowered lettuces. The fruit is a flattened, ribbed achene (cypsela) narrowed into a beak and crowned by a pappus of simple white capillary bristles.

Lactuca belongs to the tribe Cichorieae of Asteraceae, the dandelion-and-lettuce alliance with milky latex and ligulate florets. The blue-flowered Himalayan species, sometimes segregated under Cicerbita or Mulgedium, form a taxonomically intricate group, and this taxon was described by Kitamura. Wind-dispersed by its pappus, L. dolichophylla is a characteristic component of moist alpine meadows and is not regarded as threatened.

Author: Kitam. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Kitamura's studies of Himalayan Cichorieae (Compositae)

Asteraceae

Leontopodium himalayanum

by GP Jürgens

DC.

BhutanPG2011 507
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Shashuna, 4000m June
Nepal 99 528 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3800m, June

Description

Leontopodium himalayanum is the characteristic Himalayan edelweiss, distributed across China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar (CN, NP, IN, BT, PK, MM), with about 437 GBIF occurrences mapping a broad but strictly montane range along the chain. It occupies alpine and subalpine meadows, open grassy and stony slopes, screes and rocky banks, generally above the forest limit. The photographed plants were recorded on the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail at Shashuna in Bhutan at 4000 m and at the Churta-Khola in West Nepal at 3800 m, both in June, flowering early in the high-mountain season on exposed turf.

It is a tufted perennial herb growing from a short branched rhizome, producing several erect or ascending flowering stems 5–30 cm tall, the herbage greyish with a dense appressed white tomentum. The leaves are linear, linear-lanceolate or oblong-spathulate, sessile, woolly especially beneath. The inflorescence is crowned by a spreading rosette of lanceolate floral bracts much more densely white-lanate than the foliage, forming the radiating star that distinguishes the edelweiss. Several small subglobose capitula are clustered at the centre of this ruff; the heads bear yellowish tubular florets and are functionally subdioecious. The fruit is a minute cypsela tipped with a pappus of slender, barbellate to subplumose bristles facilitating wind dispersal.

Within Leontopodium (tribe Gnaphalieae) the Himalayan species form a closely allied group differentiated chiefly by indumentum density and bract proportions, and L. himalayanum (described by DC.) is the most widespread representative across the range. Its conspicuous woolly star is a classic alpine adaptation buffering the reproductive organs against ultraviolet exposure, cold and water loss. The species is common and not regarded as threatened, although picking and collection have locally reduced populations near trekking routes.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Leontopodium monograph (Handel-Mazzetti, revision of the genus)

Asteraceae

Leontopodium jacotianum

by GP Jürgens

Beauverd

Bhutan2012 57
Bhutan Shele-La, 4100m September
Bhutan2012 61
Bhutan Shele-La, 4100m September

Description

Leontopodium jacotianum is a high-alpine edelweiss of the Sino-Himalayan region, recorded from Nepal, China, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar (NP, CN, IN, BT, PK, MM), with a modest 546 GBIF occurrences reflecting its restriction to lofty, difficult terrain. It inhabits open alpine meadows, stony slopes, screes and rocky crevices above the treeline, where snow lies long and the growing season is brief. The photographed plant grew on the Shele-La in Bhutan at about 4100 m in September, flowering at the close of the monsoon season on exposed alpine turf typical of the genus across the eastern Himalaya.

It is a tufted perennial herb arising from a stout, branched caudex, forming compact cushions or small clumps of several flowering stems 5–25 cm tall, the whole densely grey-white lanate-tomentose. The basal and cauline leaves are spathulate to linear-oblong, sessile, woolly on both surfaces. The diagnostic feature is the terminal star of leaf-like floral bracts radiating beyond the capitula, densely felted with white woolly hairs and forming the familiar edelweiss "flower". Within this stellate ruff sit several crowded capitula; the heads contain yellowish tubular florets, the plants typically subdioecious with outer female and central functionally male florets. The fruit is a small cypsela crowned by a pappus of barbellate to subplumose bristles.

The genus Leontopodium (tribe Gnaphalieae) reaches its greatest diversity in the Himalaya and the mountains of western China, where numerous species are differentiated by indumentum, bract shape and habit; L. jacotianum, described by Beauverd, belongs to this dense Asiatic radiation. The thick woolly investment is an adaptation to intense ultraviolet radiation, desiccation and cold at high elevation. Though not currently assessed as threatened, such narrowly alpine specialists are sensitive to climatic warming and the upslope contraction of suitable habitat.

Author: Beauverd · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Leontopodium monograph (Handel-Mazzetti, revision of the genus)

Trichosporeae

Leptoboea multiflora

by GP Jürgens

(C.B. Clarke) Benth. ex Gamble

BhutanPG2011 823 01 01
Bhutan Paro 3000m, July

Description

Leptoboea multiflora is a perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, with 153 GBIF occurrences recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. As a member of the Gesneriaceae, it grows in shaded, humid forest, typically on mossy rocks, boulders, banks and tree bases in damp, sheltered situations of the temperate broad-leaved zone, often between about 1500 and 3000 m. The plant photographed at Paro in Bhutan at 3000 m in July occupies the upper end of this range, flowering during the moist monsoon period when atmospheric humidity is high.

The species is a low, herbaceous to slightly succulent perennial with short stems and leaves that may be clustered or subopposite, the blades ovate to elliptic, crenate to serrate at the margins and frequently pubescent, with the asymmetric, anisophyllous tendency common in the family. The flowers are numerous, as the epithet indicates, borne in axillary cymes; each has a small five-lobed calyx and a tubular, somewhat bilabiate corolla, with the typically reduced fertile stamen number of the gesneriad tribe and a superior ovary. The fruit is a slender, elongate capsule dehiscing to release very numerous minute seeds.

The entry lists the family as Trichosporeae, which is in fact a tribe of Gesneriaceae rather than a family; the accurate placement is Gesneriaceae, subfamily Didymocarpoideae, tribe Trichosporeae, within which Leptoboea is a small Asian genus allied to Boea and Paraboea. As a humidity-dependent epilithic forest herb, it is sensitive to canopy disturbance, though it remains locally frequent in undisturbed montane forest.

Author: (C.B. Clarke) Benth. ex Gamble · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Weber's classification of Gesneriaceae

Lamiaceae

Leucas ciliata

by G & P Jürgens

Benth.

Bhutan2015 62
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October
Bhutan2015 460
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October

Description

Leucas ciliata is a widely distributed Asian herb ranging across the Himalaya and into China, mainland Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam), Bangladesh and beyond, with GBIF logging 573 occurrences over a broad set of countries including CN, IN, NP, BT, TH, MM, VN and BD. It is a plant of open, disturbed and seasonally moist ground, occurring on grassy slopes, forest margins, roadsides, scrub and cultivated land at low to mid elevations, generally up to about 2500 m. The photographed plant was recorded at Wangdi (Wangdue) Phodrang in west-central Bhutan around 2000 m, flowering in October at the close of the monsoon.

The species is an erect annual or short-lived perennial herb with the quadrangular stems typical of the Lamiaceae, clothed in spreading, often ciliate hairs. The leaves are opposite, ovate to lanceolate, toothed (crenate-serrate) and short-petiolate. The flowers are aggregated into dense, globose axillary whorls (verticillasters) subtended by bristly, ciliate bracts. Each flower has a tubular, ribbed calyx with spine-tipped teeth and a two-lipped white corolla in which the small upper lip is hooded and densely woolly outside while the larger lower lip is three-lobed; the four didynamous stamens lie beneath the galea. The fruit comprises four smooth nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Leucas is a large Old World genus of the subfamily Lamioideae, well represented in tropical Asia and Africa and characterised by woolly white corollas adapted to insect pollination. Several species, including L. ciliata, are used in traditional medicine. As a ruderal colonist of open and anthropogenic habitats it is common and widespread, and faces no conservation concern.

Author: Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Lamiaceae), Sebald revision of Leucas (Labiatae)

Lamiaceae

Leucas decemdentata

by G & P Jürgens

(Willd.) Sm.

Sikkim 2006 260 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Lingza 1300m, May

Description

Leucas decemdentata is one of the most widely distributed members of its genus, ranging across tropical and subtropical Asia and out into the western Pacific. GBIF records, totalling more than 1,600 occurrences, document its presence in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar through China, Taiwan and Japan to Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea, and onward to Australia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, as well as Christmas Island. In the eastern Himalaya it is a plant of warm-temperate to subtropical situations, frequenting open hillsides, roadside banks, cultivated margins, fallow fields and other disturbed ground. The photographed plant from Lingza in West Bengal, India, at about 1300 m and flowering in May, is typical of its lower montane occurrence, where it behaves as a weedy ruderal of sunny, well-drained slopes.

The species is an erect or ascending annual to short-lived perennial herb, usually 30-100 cm tall, with quadrangular stems that are retrorsely hairy along the angles. Leaves are opposite and decussate, ovate to lanceolate, with a crenate-serrate margin, an acute apex and a cuneate to attenuate base, the lamina sparsely pubescent and borne on short petioles. The white flowers are crowded into dense, globose, axillary verticillasters subtended by linear bracts. Each flower has a tubular, ten-toothed calyx with subequal spinescent teeth and a strongly two-lipped corolla, the upper lip arched and densely white-villous, the lower lip three-lobed with a larger middle lobe; the four didynamous stamens lie beneath the hood. The fruit comprises four smooth, trigonous nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

The ten conspicuous calyx teeth give the species its epithet decemdentata and are a useful diagnostic character within the large, taxonomically intricate genus Leucas. Long included with the white-flowered, capitate-inflorescenced "thumbergia group" of species, it has frequently been confused with L. ciliata, L. mollissima and other allies, and several Asian names have been treated as synonyms. Ecologically it is a pioneer of open, disturbed habitats and a minor melliferous plant visited by bees and other insects. It carries no conservation concern, being abundant and adaptable across an enormous geographic range, and like many Leucas species it is used locally in folk medicine for fevers and skin complaints.

Author: (Willd.) Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 17, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Revision of the genus Leucas (Lamiaceae) by Ryding

Lamiaceae

Leucosceptrum canum

by G & P Jürgens

Sm.

Bhutan2015 595
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1900m, October
Bhutan2012 1307
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1900m, October
Nepal 95 429 P745 ergebnis
Nepal 95 428 P744 ergebnis
Nepal Trisuli 2700m October

Description

Leucosceptrum canum is a soft-wooded shrub or small tree of the Himalaya and southwestern China, distributed through China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar and east to Indochina (CN, NP, IN, BT, MM, VN, TH, BD, LA, with further records), one of the more frequently collected species here with about 515 occurrences. It grows in moist temperate forest, on shaded slopes, ravine sides, forest margins and clearings, typically in the warm- to cool-temperate belt. The gatherings cited are from the Mo-Chu valley in Bhutan at 1900 m and from Trisuli in Nepal at 2700 m, both flowering in October, reflecting its autumn-to-early-winter blooming in the mid-montane forest zone.

The plant is a coarse shrub or small tree with stout, four-angled young branches densely clothed, like the leaf undersides and inflorescence, in a greyish (canous) tomentum from which the epithet derives. The leaves are large, opposite, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, with a serrate margin, an acuminate apex and prominent venation. The flowers are crowded into a dense, terminal, cylindrical spike-like thyrse with conspicuous bracts; the calyx is tubular and five-toothed, and the white to pale yellow, two-lipped corolla has a short tube and exserted, declinate stamens. The fruit comprises four small nutlets (an eremocarp) enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Leucosceptrum is a small genus placed in the subfamily Lamioideae (or basal lineages) of the Lamiaceae and is of phylogenetic interest as part of an early-diverging Asian woody assemblage allied to Comanthosphace. The conspicuous, nectar-rich autumn inflorescences attract bees, butterflies and birds, and the species is notable for the production of defensive sesquiterpenes secreted by glandular trichomes. Widespread and common across the Himalaya into China, L. canum is of no conservation concern and is locally valued for fuel and as a bee plant.

Author: Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Labiatae of the Himalaya (Lamiaceae revision)

Caprifoliaceae

Leycesteria glaucophylla

by G & P Jürgens

(Hook. f. & Thomson) Hook.f.

Bhutan2014 312
Bhutan Tumching-La 2600m, May

Description

Leycesteria glaucophylla is an eastern Himalayan shrub distributed across India, China, Bhutan and Nepal and into Myanmar; GBIF documents about 113 occurrences, including a few cultivated records in Great Britain and New Zealand. It is a plant of temperate montane forest, occurring at forest margins, in shrubberies, along stream sides and in clearings, generally between about 2000 and 3000 m. The photographed individual grows in Bhutan at Tumching La at around 2600 m in May, a setting typical of this shade-tolerant honeysuckle relative within the cool, humid forests of the eastern Himalaya during the pre-monsoon period.

The species is an erect, deciduous shrub with hollow, often glaucous young stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, entire to slightly toothed, and conspicuously glaucous, particularly beneath, a feature reflected in the epithet glaucophylla. The flowers are borne in pendulous, bracteate terminal and axillary inflorescences subtended by leafy bracts; each has a tubular, funnel-shaped, white to pinkish corolla with five short lobes. The fruit is a many-seeded berry ripening to a dark purplish colour, attractive to birds which act as the principal seed dispersers.

Leycesteria glaucophylla (Hook.f. & Thomson) Hook.f. belongs to a small genus of Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan shrubs allied to Lonicera, placed in Caprifoliaceae; its showy bracts and pendulous spikes give the genus ornamental interest, and several species are cultivated. The species is restricted to the eastern Himalaya and adjacent ranges but is locally frequent in montane forest and not currently regarded as threatened. Its bird-dispersed berries aid colonisation of forest gaps and margins.

Author: (Hook. f. & Thomson) Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, taxonomic revisions of Leycesteria (Caprifoliaceae)

Caprifoliaceae

Leycesteria gracilis

by GP Jürgens

(Kurz) Airy Shaw

Bh2008 326 P504
Bhutan Jakar, 3000m April

Description

Leycesteria gracilis is a Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan shrub, GBIF recording around 232 occurrences from China, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar, with scattered records from Japan. It grows in the understorey and at the margins of temperate broadleaved and mixed forest, in shrubberies, along forest tracks and on shaded, moist banks, generally at mid to upper montane elevations between about 2400 and 3300 m. The plant photographed from Jakar (Bumthang) in central Bhutan at 3000 m, in early flower in April, is characteristic of its preference for cool, humid montane forest where it leafs and blooms in spring ahead of the summer rains.

It is a slender, erect to arching deciduous shrub with hollow, often glaucous young stems, more delicate in habit than its relative L. formosa—hence "gracilis." The leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, long-acuminate, entire to finely toothed and thin in texture. The flowers are borne in pendulous, interrupted spikes or whorled clusters subtended by leafy, sometimes purplish bracts; each has a small calyx and a tubular to funnel-shaped, five-lobed corolla in shades of white, pink or pale purple. The fruit is a small, several-seeded berry ripening dark purplish to nearly black.

Transferred by Airy Shaw from Kurz's original epithet, L. gracilis belongs to the small Himalayan genus Leycesteria, now placed in Caprifoliaceae in its broad modern sense. It is locally frequent and not regarded as threatened, though dependent on intact montane forest. Ecologically its tubular flowers attract insect and bird pollinators, while its fleshy dark berries are taken by birds that disperse the seed, making it a useful component of regenerating montane scrub.

Author: (Kurz) Airy Shaw · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Airy Shaw revision of Leycesteria (Caprifoliaceae)

Asteraceae

Ligularia atkinsonii

by GP Jürgens

(C.B.Clarke) S.W.Liu

Sikkim2003 365 P512 2
Sikkim Lachen 2740m, August

Description

Ligularia atkinsonii is a tall herbaceous perennial of the Himalaya and adjacent China, with verified occurrences in Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar. It favours moist, cool situations such as forest margins, streamsides, damp meadows and shrubby slopes through the temperate and subalpine zones, broadly between about 2500 and 4000 m. The plant photographed at Lachen in northern Sikkim at around 2740 m in August represents its late-summer flowering, when these golden composites are conspicuous in the monsoon-fed grasslands and clearings of the inner valleys.

The species arises from a stout rootstock bearing large, long-petioled basal leaves; these are broadly cordate to reniform, with toothed margins and a soft texture, the bases of the petioles often sheathing the stem. The flowering stem is erect, leafy below and bears a narrow elongate inflorescence (a raceme or narrow panicle) of numerous radiate capitula. Each head has an involucre of few narrow phyllaries and carries several spreading yellow ray florets around a disc of tubular florets. The fruit is a glabrous cylindrical achene topped by a pappus of fine brownish bristles aiding wind dispersal.

Ligularia, of tribe Senecioneae, is a large and taxonomically demanding genus centred on the Sino-Himalayan region, and L. atkinsonii, transferred to the genus by S.W. Liu from a C.B. Clarke basionym, is distinguished by its leaf shape and narrow inflorescence. Ecologically these robust herbs are important late-season nectar sources in subalpine meadows. The species is reasonably widespread along the Himalaya and is not currently considered to be of conservation concern, though it depends on the persistence of moist montane grassland.

Author: (C.B.Clarke) S.W.Liu · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal