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.

Orobanchaceae

Pedicularis pantlingii

by G & P Jürgens

Prain

Sikkim2003 205 P285
Sikkim Dzongri 3900m, August
BhutanPG2011 719 ergebnis
Bhutan Timphu 2490m, July

Description

Pedicularis pantlingii is an alpine hemiparasitic herb of the eastern Himalaya, distributed across India (notably Sikkim), China, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal, with the Austrian (AT) record almost certainly representing cultivated or herbarium-derived material rather than a natural occurrence. The roughly 114 georeferenced collections concentrate along the high mountain arc from Sikkim and Bhutan into adjacent south-eastern Tibet. It favours moist alpine meadows, open grassy slopes, streamsides and the margins of rhododendron and dwarf-shrub thickets. As the photographed material from Sikkim's Dzongri at 3900 m in August and from Bhutan near Thimphu at 2490 m in July shows, the species ranges from upper temperate to alpine elevations, flowering through the summer monsoon when these pastures are at their most lush.

Like most members of the genus, it is a semi-parasitic perennial drawing water and nutrients from neighbouring roots via haustoria. The stems arise from a short rootstock and bear leaves that are oblong to lanceolate in outline and pinnatisect, the segments toothed and often crisped at the margin. The flowers are borne in a terminal spike or raceme, each subtended by a leafy bract, with a tubular, toothed calyx. The corolla is strongly two-lipped and characteristically galeate: the hooded upper lip (galea) is frequently prolonged into a slender beak enclosing the four didynamous stamens, while the spreading three-lobed lower lip forms a landing platform for bumblebee pollinators. The fruit is an obliquely ovoid, laterally compressed capsule containing several seeds.

The genus Pedicularis (lousewort) is exceptionally diverse in the Sino-Himalayan region, which forms its global centre of speciation, and the elaborate corolla beaks reflect tight coevolution with long-tongued bumblebees. Commemorating the collector Robert Pantling of the Sikkim botanical surveys, P. pantlingii is a regional endemic of restricted range. Although not formally assessed as threatened, its dependence on intact alpine pasture makes it sensitive to overgrazing and climate-driven upslope shifts of montane vegetation.

Author: Prain · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Tsoong's Monograph of the Genus Pedicularis

Orobanchaceae

Pedicularis siphonantha

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

Sikkim2011 202
Sikkim Lachung 3000m, June
BhutanPG2011 735 01 01
Bhutan Haa-Valley, 2750m June
Bhutan2012 77
Bhutan Shele-La, 4000m September
Sikkim2003 115 P155
Sikkim below Dzongri 4000m August

Description

Pedicularis siphonantha is a Himalayan lousewort distributed through southern China, Nepal, northern India, Sikkim, Bhutan, Myanmar and Pakistan, well represented in GBIF with 810 occurrences. It is a plant of moist alpine and subalpine meadows, open hillsides, Rhododendron scrub and streamside turf, mostly between 2700 and 4500 m. The accompanying records span its range and season: Lachung in Sikkim at 3000 m and the Haa Valley in Bhutan at 2750 m in June, and the higher Shele-La (4000 m) and slopes below Dzongri (4000 m) flowering on into August and September, reflecting a long summer-to-autumn anthesis across an altitudinal gradient.

It is a perennial herb with erect or ascending stems arising from a stout rootstock, bearing leaves that are pinnatisect into oblong, doubly toothed segments. The rose-pink to purplish-red flowers are crowded in terminal racemes; the corolla is strongly two-lipped, its most distinctive feature a long, slender, often curved or twisted tubular galea drawn out into a beak (the siphon-like form giving the epithet), with a spreading three-lobed lower lip. The four stamens lie under the galea, and the fruit is an obliquely ovoid capsule containing several seeds.

Like all Pedicularis, it is a hemiparasite, drawing water and nutrients from the roots of neighbouring meadow plants through haustoria while retaining green photosynthetic foliage. The elongate corolla tube indicates pollination by long-tongued bumblebees. Pedicularis is exceptionally species-rich and difficult in the Sino-Himalaya, with corolla architecture central to species delimitation. Widespread and locally abundant, P. siphonantha is not regarded as threatened, though louseworts as a group are sensitive to changes in their host-rich alpine grassland communities.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Yamazaki: Pedicularis monograph

Orobanchaceae

Pedicularis trichoglossa

by GP Jürgens

Hook. f.

Sikkim2003 317 P451
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4300m August

Description

Pedicularis trichoglossa is a striking alpine lousewort of the Himalaya and Sino-Himalayan mountains, with 547 georeferenced records from China (CN), Nepal (NP), Bhutan (BT), India (IN) and Myanmar (MM). It is a plant of high alpine meadows, moist grassy slopes, streamsides and the margins of glacial lakes, typically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The population recorded at Saniti Lake in Sikkim at 4300 m in August is characteristic of its occurrence in damp, late-season alpine turf, where it flowers in the post-monsoon weeks alongside other high-elevation herbs. Its broad east-Himalayan distribution makes it a conspicuous element of the upper alpine flora.

It is an erect perennial herb with one to several simple or sparingly branched stems arising from a short rootstock. The leaves are alternate to subopposite, pinnatisect into many small, toothed segments, in the typical fern-like fashion of the genus. The flowers are crowded into a dense, elongate terminal spike, deep reddish-purple to wine-red, conspicuous against the foliage. Each strongly two-lipped corolla has a hooded, beaked galea formed by the upper lip, the beak conspicuously fringed with long purple hairs, a feature reflected in the epithet trichoglossa (hairy-tongued). The fruit is an oblique, beaked capsule containing several seeds.

Pedicularis (Orobanchaceae) is one of the largest and most diverse genera of the Himalayan alpine zone, where it has undergone remarkable radiation in floral form linked to bumblebee pollination; the hairy, beaked galea of P. trichoglossa is one such specialised adaptation. Like all members of the genus it is a hemiparasite, drawing water and nutrients from the roots of neighbouring plants via haustoria while retaining green, photosynthetic foliage. The species is widespread and frequent, of no conservation concern, but it is a valuable indicator of intact high-alpine meadow communities.

Author: Hook. f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Prain and Tsoong monographic studies of Asian Pedicularis

Polygonaceae

Persicaria chinensis

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) H. Gross

Bhutan2015 92
Bhutan Galephug, 600m, October

Description

Persicaria chinensis (L.) H. Gross is a widespread, often weedy perennial of warm-temperate to subtropical Asia, now naturalised well beyond its native range. GBIF records over 12,500 occurrences spanning China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar, the Malesian archipelago and the Philippines, with introduced populations in Australia, New Zealand, Réunion, the United States and Jamaica. It favours moist, disturbed ground, forest margins, roadside banks, streamsides and clearings from the lowlands to mid-montane elevations. The Bhutanese plant photographed at Galephug, at about 600 m in October, reflects its abundance in the humid foothill belt of the eastern Himalaya.

The plant is a sprawling to scrambling herb with branched, often reddish stems that are swollen at the nodes and sheathed by membranous ochreae characteristic of the family. The leaves are ovate to ovate-lanceolate, frequently with a dark chevron-shaped marking, and taper to an acute apex. The inflorescence comprises numerous small, capitate clusters of flowers; the perianth is white to pinkish and five-lobed, becoming fleshy and bluish-black in fruit. The fruit is a trigonous achene enclosed by the persistent, juicy perianth, which gives the fruiting heads a berry-like appearance.

Segregated by some authors as Polygonum chinense, the taxon is morphologically variable, and several varieties and forms have been recognised across its vast range. Its fleshy fruiting perianth promotes endozoochorous dispersal by birds, contributing to its colonising success and to its status as an invasive in several introduced territories. The species is of no conservation concern; rather, its broad ecological amplitude and ready establishment on disturbed soils make it one of the more conspicuous and adaptable knotweeds of monsoonal Asia.

Author: (L.) H. Gross · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Hara & Williams Polygonaceae treatments

Polygonaceae

Persicaria wallichii

by GP Jürgens

Greuter & Burdet

Bhutan2015 483
Bhutan Pele-La 3100m, October
Sikkim2003 410 G570
Sikkim Zemu Valley 3400m August

Description

Persicaria wallichii (the accepted name under which this taxon is listed, the binomial here being treated as a synonym in GBIF) is a robust perennial knotweed native to the Himalaya and adjacent mountains of China and Myanmar, where it occupies open hillsides, forest margins, riverbanks and disturbed ground in the temperate and subalpine zones. From its Himalayan homeland it has spread widely as an introduced and frequently invasive plant, the GBIF dataset recording it across much of Europe as well as North and South America and New Zealand, totalling well over a thousand occurrences. The illustrated plants from Pele-La in Bhutan at 3100 m, flowering in October, and from the Zemu Valley in Sikkim at 3400 m in August, exemplify its native montane setting.

The plant forms tall, spreading clumps from a vigorous, far-creeping rhizome, with erect to ascending stems that are reddish-tinged and somewhat woody at the base. The leaves are large, ovate-lanceolate to triangular, acuminate, cordate to truncate at the base, often white-tomentose beneath, and subtended by membranous, brownish ochreae sheathing the swollen nodes. The numerous small flowers are borne in much-branched, lax panicles of slender spike-like racemes; each flower has a white to pinkish perianth of five tepals enclosing eight stamens and a trifid style. The fruit is a small, glossy, three-angled (trigonous) achene enclosed by the persistent perianth.

Formerly placed in Polygonum and Aconogonon (reflected in the synonymy and field labels), the species sits within a much-revised section of Persicaria. Its dense rhizomatous growth allows it to form persistent thickets, and outside its native range it behaves as an aggressive colonist of riverbanks and waste ground, prompting management concern in several countries; within the Himalaya it remains a common and ecologically benign component of moist montane vegetation.

Author: Greuter & Burdet · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Polygonaceae), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Orchideaceae

Phalaenopsis taenialis

by G & P Jürgens

(Lindl.) Christenson & Pradhan

Bhutan2014 674
Bhutan Wangdi 2280m, May
Bhutan2014 676 scaled
Bhutan Wangdi 2280m, May
Bh2008 511 G785
Bhutan Chongsakha, 1800m April

Description

Phalaenopsis taenialis is a small epiphytic orchid distributed through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent regions, recorded from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam and Myanmar, with about 161 georeferenced occurrences. It grows on tree trunks and mossy branches in humid, broadleaved evergreen and semi-evergreen forest of the subtropical to lower temperate belt, broadly between 1500 and 2500 m. The cited Bhutanese localities at Wangdue (2280 m) in May and Chongsakha (1800 m) in April are typical of its moist, sheltered mid-elevation forest habitat, where it flowers in spring before the full monsoon.

It is a dwarf, monopodial epiphyte, often nearly leafless at flowering, with a short stem bearing well-developed, flattened, photosynthetic roots that clasp the bark. The leaves, when present, are few, thin and elliptic, and may be shed during the dry season. The inflorescence is a slender raceme of small, delicate flowers; the sepals and petals are pinkish to pale lilac, spreading, and the three-lobed labellum is the distinctive feature, with a callus and small lateral lobes characteristic of the species. The fruit is a dry, ribbed capsule releasing dust-fine seeds.

The species was long placed in Kingiella or Doritis and is sometimes segregated as Hygrochilus or Aerides allies, but is now treated within an enlarged Phalaenopsis following the combination by Christenson and Pradhan. Its deciduous, root-dominated habit is an adaptation to seasonally dry epiphytic perches. As a forest-dependent epiphyte vulnerable to habitat loss and orchid collection, it is of conservation interest across its range.

Author: (Lindl.) Christenson & Pradhan · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Christenson's monograph of Phalaenopsis

Fabaceae

Phanera vahlii 

by GP Jürgens

(Wight & Arn.) Benth.

Nepal 2001 184 ergebnis ergebnis
East-Nepal Sabha-Khola 2000m, May
Nepal 2001 476 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Labubhesi 1200m, May

Description

Phanera vahlii (formerly placed in Bauhinia) is a massive woody climber of the Indian subcontinent and Indo-Burmese region, native to India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and China, with over 400 georeferenced records and many further occurrences reflecting cultivation and naturalisation elsewhere. It is a liana of subtropical forests, riverine thickets and forest edges. The Nepalese populations documented from the Sabha Khola in the east at about 2000 m and from Labubhesi in Gorkha at about 1200 m, both flowering in May, span its broad altitudinal tolerance from foothill valleys into temperate forest.

The plant is a gigantic, high-climbing leguminous vine ascending by paired, coiled tendrils, with stems and young parts clothed in dense ferruginous tomentum. The leaves are large, broadly orbicular and conspicuously bilobed at the apex, deeply notched between two rounded lobes in the manner characteristic of the Bauhinia alliance, the lower surface rusty-pubescent. The flowers are borne in large terminal panicles; each has a campanulate calyx and five cream to yellowish-white, clawed petals, with fertile stamens and reduced staminodes. The fruit is a large, woody, oblong pod densely covered with brown velvety hairs and containing several flattened seeds.

The segregation of Phanera from Bauhinia, based on tendrillate climbing habit, stamen number and pollen characters, is now widely followed though some authorities retain a broadly circumscribed Bauhinia. The species is economically important: its tough fibre yields cordage and its very large leaves are used as plates and for wrapping. Widespread and frequently exploited, it is not considered threatened.

Author: (Wight & Arn.) Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of British India, Flora of China, Wunderlin's revision of Bauhinia and Phanera

Lamiaceae

Phlomoides breviflora

by GP Jürgens

(Benth.) Kamelin & Makhm.

BhutanPG2011 781 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3800m July

Description

Phlomoides breviflora is a perennial herb of the Himalaya and adjacent mountains, recorded from Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, India and China. Its roughly 24 georeferenced collections indicate a fairly restricted, infrequently gathered species. It grows in subalpine and alpine meadows, open slopes, dwarf-shrub margins and grazed pasture, typically at about 3000-4200 m. The Bhutanese material from Chele-La at 3800 m in July is characteristic, the plant flowering through the high-summer monsoon on cool, open mountain turf at the upper limit of meadow vegetation.

It is an erect, more or less hairy perennial arising from a woody rootstock, the stems quadrangular as is typical of the mint family. The leaves are opposite, ovate to oblong with a cordate base and crenate margins, rugose above and paler and pubescent beneath, the upper leaves grading into floral bracts. The flowers are crowded in dense axillary verticillasters subtended by stiff bristly bracteoles; the tubular calyx is ribbed and the two-lipped corolla is comparatively short, hence breviflora, with a hooded, bearded upper lip and a spreading three-lobed lower lip, pink to purplish in colour. The four didynamous stamens lie beneath the upper lip, and the fruit comprises four smooth nutlets.

The species, based on the basionym described by Bentham and transferred by Kamelin and Makhmedov, belongs to Phlomoides, a genus segregated from the broadly defined Phlomis and characterised by its herbaceous habit and root structure; the original web placement under the Phlomis name reflects that earlier treatment. The dense bracteate verticillasters channel pollination by long-tongued bumblebees of the high Himalaya. No formal conservation assessment exists, but its relatively narrow range and dependence on intact alpine meadow leave it potentially sensitive to overgrazing and climate-driven habitat shifts.

Author: (Benth.) Kamelin & Makhm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Revision of Phlomoides (Lamiaceae) monograph

Arecaceae

Phoenix loureiroi

by G & P Jürgens

Kunth

Bhutan2012 770
Bhutan Zemgang 1600m, October

Description

Phoenix loureiroi Kunth is a small date palm broadly distributed across South and Southeast Asia, recorded by GBIF from Taiwan, India, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Myanmar, the Philippines, Laos, Pakistan, Cambodia and Bhutan, with cultivated occurrences in the United States, Cuba, Brazil and Spain, totalling over 2000 records. It grows in open forest, savanna, grassy slopes and rocky hillsides from the lowlands into the lower montane zone, tolerating seasonally dry, fire-prone ground. The Bhutanese material from Zhemgang at 1600 m in October reflects its presence in the warm subtropical foothills.

It is a small, often clustering palm with a short, sometimes subterranean stem clothed in persistent leaf bases, rarely forming a slender erect trunk. The leaves are pinnate and arching, the leaflets (pinnae) linear-lanceolate and stiff, the lower ones modified into sharp spines (acanthophylls), a defining feature of Phoenix. The plants are dioecious, the inflorescences branched spadices enclosed in a spathe, the small unisexual flowers cream to yellowish. The fruit is a small ellipsoid drupe ripening purplish-black to reddish, with thin sweet flesh around a single grooved seed, dispersed by birds.

Phoenix loureiroi is a polymorphic species with several recognised varieties spanning its wide range. As a relative of the cultivated date palm, it provides minor local uses for thatch, fibre and fruit, accounting for the scattered cultivated records. Its fire- and drought-tolerant habit and broad Indo-Malesian to Sino-Himalayan distribution make it a resilient element of open landscapes, and it is not threatened, although habitat conversion locally reduces wild populations.

Author: Kunth · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 23, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Pakistan, Barrow monograph of the genus Phoenix (Palmae)

Rosaceae

Photinia integrifolia

by G & P Jürgens

Lindl.

Bhutan2014 22
Bhutan Sandrup 850m, May
Bhutan2014 481
Bhutan Tongsa 2000m, May

Description

Photinia integrifolia is an evergreen tree or large shrub of broad Indo-Malesian distribution, with verified occurrences across China, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Bhutan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines, Korea, Bangladesh and Timor-Leste, and well over a thousand GBIF records reflecting its wide range and abundance. It grows in subtropical to lower-temperate broadleaved and evergreen forest, on slopes and along ridges, generally from near 800 up to about 2500 m. The Bhutanese material cited, from Sandrup at around 850 m and Tongsa near 2000 m, both in May, spans the altitudinal breadth of its habitat from warm foothill forest into cooler mid-elevation woodland.

The tree has smooth grey bark and bears alternate, leathery, glabrous leaves that are oblong to elliptic-lanceolate with entire (rarely obscurely toothed) margins, the integri-folious character of the epithet, tapering to a short petiole. The small white flowers are massed in terminal corymbose panicles; each has five spreading petals, numerous stamens and an inferior to half-inferior ovary. The fruit is a small subglobose pome, red ripening to dark purple-black, containing one or few seeds and readily taken by birds.

Photinia, of subfamily Amygdaloideae (formerly Maloideae), is allied to Pyrus and Sorbus, and P. integrifolia, described by Lindley, is distinguished within the Asian group by its entire-margined evergreen leaves. Ecologically it is a useful timber and fuelwood tree whose bird-dispersed pomes contribute to forest regeneration. Given its very wide distribution and frequency across South and South-East Asia, it is of least conservation concern.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India