Tag:

Nepal

Flowers of Nepal — 1313 wild plant species documented from the Nepalese Himalaya, from subtropical foothills to high alpine meadows above 4,000 m. Nepal’s dramatic elevation gradient makes it one of the richest botanical regions on Earth, home to rhododendrons, primulas, gentians and the famed blue poppies (Meconopsis). Every entry gives a botanical description, native distribution, habitat and flowering season, alongside the original field photograph and the location where it was taken.

Orchideaceae

Satyrium nepalense

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

Sikkim2003 363 P512
Sikkim Lachen Tista Tal 3450m August
Sikkim2003 364 P511
Sikkim Lachen Tista Tal 3450m August
Nepal 95 100 P178 ergebnis
Nepal Barphak 2450m October
Nepal 95 135 P228 ergebnis
Nepal Barphak 2450m October

Description

Satyrium nepalense D.Don is a terrestrial orchid of remarkably wide distribution, ranging across the Himalaya and southern Asia from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and southern China to Myanmar, and extending through tropical and southern Africa; GBIF records nearly 1921 occurrences, reflecting its broad ecological tolerance. It grows in open grassy slopes, meadows, scrub and forest clearings from the submontane belt to high alpine pastures, broadly between about 1500 and 3700 m. The cited material from Lachen in Sikkim at 3450 m in August and Barphak in central Nepal at 2450 m in October illustrates its long flowering season across a wide altitudinal range.

The species is a terrestric herb arising from paired ovoid, tomentose tubers, with an erect leafy stem bearing a few ovate to lanceolate sheathing leaves. The inflorescence is a dense cylindrical raceme of many small, pink to rose-purple, fragrant flowers; each flower is non-resupinate, with the lip uppermost and produced into two slender, parallel spurs at its base, a diagnostic feature of the genus. The fruit is a small dehiscent capsule releasing abundant dust-like seeds.

Satyrium (Orchidaceae, subtribe Satyriinae) is a chiefly African genus with an outlying Asian representation, of which S. nepalense is the most widespread; its twin-spurred, non-resupinate flowers and moth pollination are characteristic. Valued in traditional medicine for its tubers, the species is locally collected, and although still common it warrants monitoring where harvesting pressure is intense.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Orchids of Sikkim Himalaya, Pridgeon et al. Genera Orchidacearum

Actinidiaceae

Saurauia napaulensis

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 757
Bhutan Zemgang 1200m, October
Bhutan2012 758
Bhutan Zemgang 1200m, October

Description

Saurauia napaulensis is a subtropical tree or large shrub widely distributed through the southern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, with abundant GBIF occurrences in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. It is a frequent component of moist subtropical broad-leaved forest, secondary forest, ravines and stream sides, generally between 600 and 2,100 m. The photographed individual was recorded at Zhemgang in central Bhutan at about 1,200 m in October, within the warm mid-hill belt where the species is a conspicuous understorey and gap-colonising tree.

The plant is a small evergreen tree, typically with stout twigs and young parts clothed in scaly or bristly indumentum characteristic of the genus. The leaves are large, alternate, oblanceolate to elliptic, leathery, with serrate margins and prominent lateral venation, the lower surface bearing scattered scales or appressed setae. The flowers are borne in branched axillary panicles; each is five-merous with white to pink, somewhat cup-shaped petals, numerous stamens, and several distinct or basally united styles. The fruit is a small, fleshy, depressed-globose, greenish to whitish berry containing many minute seeds, attractive to birds and other animal dispersers.

Saurauia is the only genus of Actinidiaceae with a wide Old World tropical distribution, the family also containing the kiwifruit genus Actinidia, and the scaly indumentum and many-styled flowers are diagnostic. Saurauia napaulensis is among the most common and widespread Asian species, used locally for fuel, fodder and edible fruit. It is abundant, regenerates readily in disturbed ground, and is not of conservation concern.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 12 (Actinidiaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Hunter: Revision of the Asian species of Saurauia

Araceae

Sauromatum diversifolium

by G & P Jürgens

(Wall. ex Schott) Cusimano & Hett.

Nepal 99 241 ergebnis
West-Nepal Tallekh 3000m, June
Nepal 2009 97 ergebnis
Nepal Helambu Samathang 2410, May

Description

Sauromatum diversifolium is a tuberous aroid of the Himalaya and adjacent uplands, distributed through India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand, with around 146 recorded occurrences. It grows in moist temperate forest, on shaded banks, in open grassy slopes and among rocks where seasonal soil moisture is reliable, emerging with the onset of the warm season and dying back to its tuber during the dry winter. In Nepal it occupies the middle to upper montane zone, as shown by collections from Tallekh in the west at about 3000 m in June and from Samathang in the Helambu region at 2410 m in May, the latter dates coinciding with its early-season flowering.

The plant arises from a subglobose, depressed tuber and typically produces a single long-petiolate leaf whose blade is deeply pedately divided into several lanceolate to elliptic segments, the lobes acuminate and the petiole often mottled. The inflorescence is a typical aroid spadix subtended by a spathe, the spathe tube convolute and the limb expanded, lanceolate and often dull purple or marked within. The spadix bears a sterile terminal appendix above separated zones of female and male flowers, and emits a faint odour at anthesis to attract small dipteran and beetle pollinators. The fruiting head is a cluster of small berries.

The species was transferred to Sauromatum by Cusimano and Hettich on molecular and morphological evidence that united the former Typhonium diversifolium with the saururoid lineage. The genus is protogynous and largely sapromyophilous, with thermogenic spadices that volatilise scent to lure pollinators into the floral chamber. Widespread and locally frequent in suitable montane habitat, S. diversifolium is not regarded as threatened, though like many tuberous aroids it is sensitive to grazing pressure and the loss of forest-edge microhabitats.

Author: (Wall. ex Schott) Cusimano & Hett. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 23, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Cusimano et al. molecular phylogeny of Areae (Araceae)

Asteraceae

Saussurea fastuosa

by G & P Jürgens

(Decne.) Sch.Bip.

Garw 2005 170 ergebnis
India Garhwal Simka 2800m, October

Description

Saussurea fastuosa is a Sino-Himalayan species distributed across the high mountain ranges of China, India, Nepal and Bhutan, with around 94 georeferenced occurrences documenting a coherent eastern Himalayan to southwest Chinese range. It is a plant of temperate and subalpine zones, favouring forest margins, moist grassy slopes, scrub and stream banks, typically between roughly 2500 and 3800 m. The photographed material from Simka in Indian Garhwal at 2800 m, flowering in October, is representative of its autumn-flowering behaviour in the western part of its range, where it occupies cool, humid clearings within mixed conifer and broad-leaved forest.

It is a robust perennial herb with an erect, leafy, often glandular-pubescent stem arising from a stout rootstock. The leaves are alternate, the lower ones petiolate and lyrate-pinnatifid to broadly ovate, the upper progressively smaller, sessile and somewhat amplexicaul, with dentate margins and a thinly arachnoid-hairy lamina beneath. The capitula are medium-sized and aggregated in a corymbose synflorescence, each surrounded by an ovoid to campanulate involucre of imbricate, often purple-tinged, frequently squarrose phyllaries. The florets are all tubular and purple; the achenes are glabrous and crowned by a double pappus, the outer row scabrid and caducous, the inner of plumose, basally connate bristles.

Within the very large and taxonomically complex genus Saussurea, this species belongs to the broad-leaved, lowland-to-subalpine assemblage rather than the cushion-forming snow lotuses of the highest alpine zone. The name S. fastuosa (Decne.) Sch.Bip. is the accepted name. As an entomophilous late-season nectar source it is visited by bumblebees and other long-tongued insects, and like its congeners it disperses by anemochory via the plumose pappus. It is locally frequent and not regarded as threatened.

Author: (Decne.) Sch.Bip. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Lipschitz Genus Saussurea (monograph)

Asteraceae

Saussurea gossypiphora

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Sikkim2003 293 P407
Sikkim Samiti-Lake 4400m, August
Nepal 99 626 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 4900m, July

Description

Saussurea gossypiphora, the snowball or cotton-headed saussurea, is a remarkable high-alpine herb of the Himalaya and adjacent Tibetan China, recorded only from China and Nepal in GBIF with a mere 26 occurrences, reflecting both its extreme habitat and its restricted, fragmented distribution. It is among the highest-growing flowering plants, inhabiting open scree, moraine, gravelly alpine slopes and the margins of glacial debris in the upper alpine and subnival zone. The images document it in Sikkim near Samiti Lake at about 4400 m in August and in West Nepal on the Kagmara-La at around 4900 m in July, among the most extreme elevations at which it grows.

It is a stout, dwarf perennial herb forming a dense rosette, in which the upper leaves and the capitula are enveloped in a thick mass of long white woolly hairs forming a globose, cotton-wool-like dome. Beneath this insulating covering the leaves are oblanceolate, deeply toothed and arachnoid-hairy. The numerous small discoid capitula are clustered at the apex within the wool, each with purplish tubular florets and a multiseriate involucre. The fruit is a glabrous achene crowned by a feathery, plumose pappus aiding wind dispersal once the protective wool opens.

The dense lanate indumentum is a celebrated adaptation to the subnival environment, trapping heat, buffering night frost and ultraviolet radiation, and sheltering pollinating insects, paralleling the "glasshouse" and "woolly" growth forms found in other high-elevation Saussurea and Rheum. As a slow-growing, habitat-specialised plant of limited range it is potentially vulnerable to climate warming and collection pressure, though it has not been formally assessed.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz Monograph of the Genus Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea graminifolia 

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Garw 2005 328 ergebnis
India Garhwal Bagubasa 4100m, September

Description

Saussurea graminifolia is a high-alpine composite of the Himalaya and Tibetan borderlands, distributed across Nepal, India, China and Bhutan, with about 127 GBIF occurrences. It is a true plant of the upper alpine zone, occupying screes, fine gravel, glacial moraine, stony meadows and exposed ridges generally above 4000 m and reaching well over 4500 m. The collection from Bagubasa in Garhwal, India, at 4100 m in September corresponds to its late-season flowering, when these wind-swept slopes near the limit of vascular plant life carry the characteristic cushion and rosette flora of the region.

It is a low, tufted perennial herb growing from a stout rootstock, with very narrow, grass-like (graminifolious) basal leaves that form a dense rosette, the epithet alluding to this distinctive linear foliage. One or few short scapes bear a cluster of capitula crowded among the leaves and often partly enveloped by them. The flower heads are discoid, containing only tubular florets that are purple to violet, surrounded by overlapping involucral bracts. As in Saussurea generally the fruit is an achene topped by a pappus of feathery (plumose) inner bristles and shorter outer ones.

Saussurea belongs to tribe Cardueae of the Asteraceae and is a hallmark genus of the Sino-Himalayan alpine zone, where many species show adaptations such as woolly indumentum or translucent bracts (the "snowball" and "glasshouse" plants) that buffer the harsh, cold, high-radiation environment. Though not formally threatened, such specialised high-elevation endemics are sensitive to climate warming and to harvesting where Saussurea species are used medicinally.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Saussurea monograph (Lipschitz)

Asteraceae

Saussurea leontodontoides

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Sch.Bip.

Garw 2005 104 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Gaushon 3200m, September
Nepal 95 160 P261 ergebnis
Nepal South of Rupina La October

Description

Saussurea leontodontoides is a widespread high-alpine composite of the Himalaya and the Tibetan plateau, distributed through China, India, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan and well documented with some 683 GBIF records. It colonises stony alpine slopes, screes, gravelly pastures and open turf, generally between about 3000 and 5000 m. The cited material from Garhwal at Gaushon (3200 m, September) and from south of the Rupina La in Nepal (October) illustrates its broad longitudinal range and its late-summer to autumn flowering, when the rosettes persist on exposed, well-drained substrates baked by intense montane sun and chilled by night frosts.

The plant is a low, more or less stemless perennial herb forming a flat basal rosette from a stout, often woody taproot. The leaves, evoking those of Leontodon as the epithet implies, are oblanceolate in outline and deeply pinnatifid to runcinate, with the surfaces frequently grey-tomentose, and they spread radially against the ground. The capitula are sessile or shortly stalked at the rosette centre, solitary or few, with imbricate, often purple-tinged involucral bracts. The florets are all tubular (discoid) and purple to pink-purple, characteristic of the genus, and the cypselae bear a feathery, plumose pappus aiding wind dispersal.

Saussurea belongs to tribe Cardueae of the Asteraceae, and S. leontodontoides sits among the cushion- and rosette-forming alpine snow-line species adapted to extreme cold, desiccation and high irradiance. Its tap-rooted, ground-hugging habit and woolly indumentum are classic alpine survival traits. Pollination is by alpine insects, and the plumed achenes disperse readily on mountain winds. The species is common and not of conservation concern, though, like related Saussurea, it may be gathered locally for traditional medicinal use.

Author: (DC.) Sch.Bip. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Asteraceae), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz Saussurea monograph

Asteraceae

Saussurea obvallata

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Edgew.

Sikkim2003 453 G623
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3800m August
Sikkim2003 451 P628
Sikkim Chopta Valley 3800m August

Description

Saussurea obvallata is a high-alpine herb of the Sino-Himalayan region, distributed across the mountains of China, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan, with some 350 georeferenced records documenting a broadly continuous arc along the Greater Himalaya. It is a plant of open alpine meadows, moraines, scree slopes and rocky pastures, typically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The photographed material from the Chopta Valley in Sikkim at 3800 m, flowering in August, is characteristic of its preferred late-monsoon habitat on moist, well-drained alpine turf where snow lies long into early summer.

The species is a stout perennial arising from a thick taproot, with an erect, simple, leafy stem. The lower leaves are oblanceolate and dentate, narrowing to a winged petiole, while the upper leaves grade into membranous, pale, semi-translucent bracts that arch inward to enclose the inflorescence. These greenish-straw involucral bracts form the conspicuous globose to urn-shaped "lantern" that almost entirely hides the cluster of dark purple capitula within. The florets are tubular and purple-black, and the achenes bear a feathery, plumose pappus that aids wind dispersal.

The enclosing bract chamber is widely interpreted as an adaptation that buffers temperature, protects pollinating insects from cold and wind, and shelters developing florets at extreme elevation, a striking example of greenhouse-like alpine convergence shared with Rheum nobile. Long known in Himalayan tradition as the sacred "Brahma Kamal," the plant is heavily collected for ornament and medicine, and populations near pilgrimage routes face local pressure of regional conservation concern.

Author: (DC.) Edgew. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz monograph of Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea polystichoides

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 307 P433
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4250m August

Description

Saussurea polystichoides is a high-alpine perennial herb of the eastern and central Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, northern India, Bhutan and adjacent south-western China, with a small documented base of about 43 occurrences consistent with its restricted, high-elevation habitat. It grows on open alpine turf, screes, moraines and rocky slopes, typically between roughly 4000 and 4800 m. The specimen shown was photographed near Saniti Lake in Sikkim at about 4250 m in August, when these short-season alpines flower during the brief post-monsoon window above the treeline.

The plant is a low, cushion-forming or tufted herb arising from a stout caudex clothed in old leaf bases, the name polystichoides alluding to the fern-like, many-ranked rosette of finely divided leaves. The leaves are pinnately lobed to pinnatisect, narrow and densely arranged, often white-woolly to give protection against cold and intense radiation. The capitula are sessile or shortly stalked and aggregated within the leaf rosette; each head bears tubular, purple to violet disc florets enclosed by imbricate, often lanate phyllaries. The fruit is a glabrous cypsela crowned by a feathery, plumose pappus.

Saussurea (Asteraceae, tribe Cardueae) is a large Asian genus particularly diversified in the high Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, where many species have evolved dense indumentum or translucent bracts as adaptations to extreme alpine conditions. S. polystichoides belongs to the group of cushion- or rosette-forming saw-worts of the highest screes. Pollinated by alpine insects and wind-dispersed via its plumose pappus, it is a narrow-range, habitat-specialist endemic of conservation interest given its limited area and sensitivity to climatic warming.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Lipschitz monograph of Saussurea

Asteraceae

Saussurea roylei

by G & P Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Nepal 99 480 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3600m, June

Description

Saussurea roylei is an alpine composite of the western and central Himalaya, distributed through India, Nepal, Pakistan and adjacent China (IN, NP, PK, CN), with about 223 recorded occurrences. It grows in open alpine meadows, on grassy and stony slopes, screes and rocky ground in the subalpine to alpine zone, broadly between about 3000 and 4500 m. The plant shown here was photographed at Churta Khola in West Nepal at 3600 m in June, an elevation and early-summer flowering season typical of the species, where it occupies the herb-rich turf and gravelly margins of high pastures shortly after snowmelt.

The plant is a low perennial herb arising from a stout rootstock, with a simple or sparingly branched, often leafy stem. The leaves are elliptic to lanceolate, the basal ones narrowed to a winged petiole, the margins entire to toothed and the lower surface frequently thinly woolly. The flower heads (capitula) are clustered in a dense terminal corymb, each head an involucre of imbricate, often purplish-tipped bracts enclosing numerous small, tubular, purple to violet disc florets; ray florets are absent, as throughout the genus. The fruit is a glabrous cypsela (achene) crowned by a pappus of feathery inner and shorter, scabrid outer bristles aiding wind dispersal.

Saussurea (tribe Cardueae, the thistle alliance of the Asteraceae) is a large and taxonomically intricate genus that reaches spectacular diversity in the high Sino-Himalaya, including the woolly and bracteate 'snow lotus' alpines. S. roylei belongs to the assemblage of meadow-dwelling, non-cottony species and is pollinated by bumblebees and other alpine insects drawn to the discoid heads. Widespread across the western Himalaya and locally common in alpine grassland, it is not of conservation concern, although high-altitude Saussurea species generally face pressure from grazing and harvesting.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Saussurea: A Monograph (Lipschitz)