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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.

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)

Oleaceae

Osmanthus suavis

by GP Jürgens

King ex C.B.Clarke

Bh2008 14 G24
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Nepal 2001 110 ergebnis ergebnis
East-Nepal Gupka Pokhari 3200m, April

Description

Osmanthus suavis King ex C.B.Clarke is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the olive family endemic to the eastern Himalaya and adjacent mountains, recorded from Nepal, India, Bhutan, China and Myanmar (158 GBIF occurrences). It grows in the understorey and margins of temperate broad-leaved and mixed conifer forest, on slopes, ridges and forest edges roughly between 2400 and 3500 m. It was documented in Bhutan along the Thimphu-Chu at 2800 m in April and in eastern Nepal at Gupka Pokhari around 3200 m, also in April, its flowering coinciding with the spring warming of the mid-montane forest belt.

It forms a densely branched shrub with grey, lenticellate bark. The leaves are opposite, coriaceous, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, the margins entire or sparsely spinulose-serrate, glossy dark green above and dotted with minute glands beneath. The fragrant flowers are small and clustered in short axillary fascicles or cymes; the corolla is white to cream, gamopetalous with four spreading lobes united into a short tube, bearing two stamens, and the whole shrub is sweetly scented in flower, as the epithet suavis records. The fruit is an ovoid drupe ripening blue-black, with a single hard-walled stone.

Osmanthus belongs to tribe Oleeae and is centred on East and Southeast Asia, with O. suavis representing the Himalayan extension of this largely Sino-Japanese genus, allied to the fragrant cultivated O. fragrans. Its scented insect-pollinated flowers and drupaceous bird-dispersed fruits are typical of the genus. While not formally threatened, it is dependent on intact temperate forest and is locally valued as an ornamental and for its aromatic blossoms.

Author: King ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Oleaceae monograph (Green revision of Osmanthus)

Euphorbiaceae

Ostodes paniculata

by G & P Jürgens

Blume

Bhutan2015 194
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October
Bhutan2015 195
Bhutan Zhemgang 1000m, October

Description

Ostodes paniculata is a tree or large shrub widely distributed through tropical and subtropical Asia, recorded by GBIF from China, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Korea across more than 1100 occurrences. It is a component of evergreen and semi-evergreen broad-leaved forest in warm, humid lowland and lower montane settings, usually below about 1500 m, often on hillslopes and in valley forest. The photographed individual from Zhemgang in southern Bhutan at about 1000 m, in October, reflects this warm-temperate to subtropical foothill habitat where the species reaches the northern margin of its range along the Himalayan front.

The plant is a monoecious, evergreen tree with smooth bark and a milky or watery exudate. The leaves are alternate, simple, broadly elliptic to ovate, long-petiolate with a pair of glands at the petiole apex, the margin serrate to glandular-toothed and the base often with a few prominent basal nerves. The inflorescences are terminal panicles bearing numerous small white to creamy flowers, the staminate and pistillate flowers separate, with five petals and conspicuous disk glands; staminate flowers have numerous stamens. The fruit is a globose, three-locular capsule, somewhat woody, that splits septicidally to release the large smooth seeds.

Ostodes is a small genus of the Euphorbiaceae (subfamily Crotonoideae) centred on tropical Asia, and O. paniculata is its most widespread and well-known species, valued locally for its timber and seed oil. Its broad range and tolerance of secondary forest mean it is not of conservation concern, and it is frequent across much of Indo-Malaya. Phytogeographically it exemplifies the Indo-Malayan element that penetrates the Himalaya through the warm, wet foothill forests of Bhutan and northeast India.

Author: Blume · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Thailand, Radcliffe-Smith Euphorbiaceae treatments

Fabaceae

Ototropis multiflora

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi

Bhutan2012 985
Bhutan Trithangebe 1050m, October
Bhutan2012 986
Bhutan Trithangebe 1050m, October

Description

Ototropis multiflora (DC.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi, long familiar as Desmodium multiflorum, is a shrubby legume widely distributed through tropical and subtropical Asia. GBIF records (over 1400 occurrences) extend from Pakistan, Nepal, northern India and Bhutan eastward through southern China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia. It grows in open forest, scrub, forest margins, roadsides and grassy hill slopes at lower and middle elevations, broadly from near sea level to about 2400 m. The specimen photographed at Trithangebe in Bhutan at 1050 m in October, flowering late in the warm season, typifies its preference for warm, well-lit subtropical foothill habitats.

It is an erect, much-branched shrub up to about 1-2 m tall, with young stems and foliage softly pubescent. The leaves are pinnately trifoliolate; leaflets are ovate to elliptic, the terminal one largest, densely soft-hairy beneath, and subtended by persistent stipules. Flowers are borne in many-flowered terminal and axillary racemes or panicles, each papilionaceous corolla pink to purple, the keel enclosing the diadelphous stamens. The fruit is a flattened, several-jointed loment, the segments shallowly constricted and clothed in hooked uncinate hairs that adhere to fur and clothing, promoting epizoochorous dispersal.

The segregation of Ototropis from the broadly defined Desmodium follows molecular work by H. Ohashi and K. Ohashi that resolved tribe Desmodieae into several well-supported genera; Ototropis multiflora is therefore the currently accepted name. As a nitrogen-fixing legume it contributes to soil fertility on disturbed slopes and is used locally as fodder and in traditional medicine. Widespread, weedy and adaptable, it is of least conservation concern and readily colonises secondary habitats.

Author: (DC.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Ohashi & Ohashi revision of tribe Desmodieae, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Oxalidaceae

Oxalis griffithii

by GP Jürgens

Edgew. & Hook. f.

Bh2008 308 G476
Bhutan Tongsa, 3300m April

Description

Oxalis griffithii is a woodland herb widely distributed across temperate eastern and southern Asia, ranging from the Himalaya (India, Nepal, Bhutan) through China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Myanmar and into Russia, with numerous cultivated and naturalised European records; GBIF logs 6798 occurrences across this broad area. It is a plant of shaded, humus-rich habitats, growing on the floor of temperate broad-leaved and conifer forests, on mossy banks and beside streams, chiefly between about 1500 and 3500 m. The photographed plant from Tongsa (Trongsa) in central Bhutan at 3300 m in April shows it flowering in early spring beneath the still-leafless forest canopy, when light reaches the understorey.

It is a small, delicate perennial herb arising from a slender, scaly, creeping rhizome or bulbil-bearing rootstock. The long-petiolate leaves are basal and trifoliolate, the leaflets obtriangular (broadly obcordate) and notched at the apex, folding downward at night and in dull weather (nyctinasty). The flowers are solitary on slender axillary scapes, with five sepals and five white petals usually marked with fine yellow or pinkish-purple veins at the base. The fruit is an elongate, cylindrical, five-angled loculicidal capsule that dehisces explosively, ejecting the small seeds whose fleshy aril everts to fling them from the parent plant.

The species belongs to Oxalis (Oxalidaceae), the largest genus of its family and the only one of the wood-sorrels well represented in temperate Asia. Its tissues are rich in oxalic acid and soluble oxalates, giving the characteristic sour taste. The explosive ballistic seed dispersal, nyctinastic leaf movements and capacity for vegetative spread by rhizomes and bulbils underlie its wide distribution and ready naturalisation. Common and ecologically adaptable, it is of least conservation concern.

Author: Edgew. & Hook. f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Monograph of the Oxalidaceae (Knuth, Das Pflanzenreich)

Melastomataceae

Oxyspora paniculata

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2015 552
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1400m, October

Description

Oxyspora paniculata is a widespread species of the family Melastomataceae, distributed from the eastern Himalayas through mainland Southeast Asia to southern China and Vietnam. GBIF records over 1,090 occurrences across Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, China, Laos, Vietnam, and Japan. The species inhabits warm-temperate to subtropical broadleaved forests, forest margins, and streamsides at elevations of 500–2,200 m, favouring humid, semi-shaded habitats with well-drained acidic soils. Along the Mo-Chu valley in Bhutan at 1,400 m, it grows in the understorey of warm broadleaved forests dominated by Castanopsis and Schima.
Oxyspora paniculata is a shrub or subshrub, typically 1–3 m tall, with quadrangular, often narrowly winged stems. Leaves are opposite, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 8–18 cm long, acuminate at the apex, with 3–5 prominent acrodromous veins and finely serrulate margins. The inflorescence is a terminal, lax panicle of cymes, 10–25 cm long, bearing numerous small flowers. Flowers are tetramerous, with pink to mauve petals 6–10 mm long and eight stamens of two lengths; the longer stamens bear sigmoid filaments and poricidal anthers with a short dorsal spur. The fruit is a urceolate capsule dehiscing by four apical valves, releasing numerous minute, cuneate seeds.
The genus Oxyspora comprises approximately 20 species centred in the Sino-Himalayan region and mainland Southeast Asia. Oxyspora paniculata is the most widespread member of the genus and has at times been confused with O. vagans, from which it differs in its distinctly winged stems and larger panicles. The species plays an important ecological role as a nectar source for pollinators in subtropical forest margins and is occasionally used in traditional medicine in parts of northeast India.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Renner et al.: Melastomataceae of the Old World (2021)

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)

Araliaceae

Panax pseudoginseng

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2012 27
Bhutan Shele-La, 3500m September

Description

Panax pseudoginseng is a rhizomatous perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and Sino-Himalayan region, distributed across Nepal, India, Bhutan, China and Myanmar; its c. 255 georeferenced records define a temperate to subalpine forest range (records from Japan, North America, Russia and Europe largely reflect cultivation and study collections). It grows in shaded, humus-rich understorey of broadleaf and mixed forest, on mossy banks and in damp ravines, typically between 2500 and 4000 m. The plant photographed at Shele-La in Bhutan at 3500 m in September grows in the cool, moist upper-temperate to subalpine forest where the genus reaches its Himalayan optimum.

It is a slender erect herb 30-70 cm tall arising from a knotted, often elongate fleshy rhizome bearing prominent stem scars. A single whorl of palmately compound leaves crowns the stem, each leaf with three to five serrate, obovate to oblong leaflets, the terminal ones largest. From the centre rises a long peduncle bearing a solitary terminal umbel of small greenish flowers, each with five petals, five stamens and an inferior two-carpellate ovary with two recurved styles. The fruit is a small, fleshy red drupe, sometimes black-tipped, containing two flattened seeds.

Described by Wallich (as Wall.), P. pseudoginseng is the Himalayan representative of Panax, the ginseng genus of the Araliaceae, and a close relative of the medicinally renowned P. ginseng and P. notoginseng. Its rhizome contains ginsenosides and is harvested in traditional Himalayan and Chinese medicine, exposing wild populations to over-collection. The brightly coloured drupes are bird-dispersed. Because of its slow growth, narrow forest habitat and medicinal value, the species is regarded as conservation-sensitive and locally depleted by harvesting.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Wen's revision of Panax (Araliaceae)

Pandanaceae

Pandanus furcatus

by G & P Jürgens

Roxb.

Bhutan2012 749
Bhutan Zhemgang 850m, September
Bhutan2015 127
Bhutan Zhemgang 850m, September

Description

Pandanus furcatus, the Himalayan screw-pine, is a tree-like monocot of the eastern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, recorded by GBIF from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar (with cultivated records in Europe) across roughly 352 georeferenced occurrences. It is a plant of warm, humid, subtropical forest, favouring stream banks, moist ravines, gullies and shaded valley bottoms where the air remains saturated, generally at low elevations in the foothill zone. The photographed plant from Zhemgang in central Bhutan at about 850 m in September is characteristic of its occurrence along the moist inner-valley watercourses of the southern Himalaya, where it forms a conspicuous element of riparian vegetation.

The plant grows as a small tree with a slender trunk supported above the ground by a cone of stout, downwardly directed stilt (prop) roots, the stem typically branching and bearing terminal tufts of leaves. The leaves are very long, strap-shaped (ensiform) and spirally arranged in three ranks that twist around the stem, with sharp spiny teeth along the margins and the midrib beneath. Like all Pandanus it is dioecious. The male inflorescence is a much-branched, pendulous, fragrant spike subtended by white bracts, while the female inflorescence develops into a large, pendent, globose to ovoid syncarp (compound fruit) composed of numerous angular, wedge-shaped drupes that ripen yellow to orange-red.

Pandanus furcatus belongs to the Pandanaceae, an ancient pantropical family of arborescent monocots distinguished by their stilt roots, spiral tristichous leaves and dioecious habit. Among Himalayan species it is notable for ascending to relatively high elevations for the genus and for its role in stabilising stream banks and providing fruit and shelter for wildlife; the leaves are used locally for weaving and thatching. Although harvested locally, the species has a broad distribution and is locally common, and it is not regarded as globally threatened.

Author: Roxb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 23, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Stone: revisional studies of Pandanus and the Pandanaceae