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.

Fabaceae

Tephrosia candida

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 628
Bhutan Wangdi 2600m September
Bhutan2012 734
Bhutan Galephu 650m, October

Description

Tephrosia candida is a shrubby legume native to the Indian subcontinent and adjacent Himalaya, including India, Nepal and Bhutan, but now pantropically naturalised through widespread cultivation, with GBIF records from Brazil, Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Madagascar, the Caribbean, the Mascarenes and beyond. It thrives in warm subtropical and tropical conditions on forest margins, roadsides, river banks and disturbed open ground. The Bhutanese collections illustrate its altitudinal breadth, from Galephu in the foothills at about 650 m in October to Wangdi at 2600 m flowering in September.

The plant is an erect, much-branched shrub up to about 3 m, with silky-pubescent young growth. The leaves are imparipinnate with numerous (often 8-12 pairs of) narrowly oblong leaflets that are silky-sericeous beneath, giving the foliage a greyish sheen. The flowers are borne in dense terminal racemes; each papilionate flower has a campanulate pubescent calyx and a white to pale pink or cream corolla with a broad standard silky on the outer face, the keel and wings enclosing diadelphous stamens. The fruit is a flattened, linear, densely velvety-pubescent dehiscent pod that twists on splitting to expel several seeds.

A member of the papilionoid Fabaceae and tribe Millettieae, T. candida is a nitrogen-fixing species long valued as a green manure, cover crop, fallow improver and erosion-control plant, which explains its extensive intentional dispersal across the tropics. Like other Tephrosia it contains rotenoid compounds and has been used as a fish poison and insecticide. Robust and weedy in cultivation, it is in no way of conservation concern and can become locally naturalised.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of British India, Brummitt's and related revisions of Tephrosia (Leguminosae)

Combretaceae

Terminalia myriocarpa

by GP Jürgens

Van Heurck & Müll. Arg.

Bhutan2015 170
Bhutan Zhemgang 950m, October
Bhutan2012 783
Bhutan Zemgang 1800m, October

Description

Terminalia myriocarpa Van Heurck & Mull.Arg. is a large evergreen tree of the Combretaceae, distributed across the eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burmese region, ranging from northeastern India, Nepal and Bhutan through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam to southwestern China (GBIF: c. 454 occurrences). It is a canopy tree of subtropical and tropical moist evergreen forests, favouring deep, moist soils along streams and in foothill valleys, generally below about 1,500 m though ascending higher locally. The photographed trees from Zhemgang in central Bhutan, recorded at about 950 m and 1,800 m in October, illustrate its presence in the warm, humid forests of the southern foothills.

The tree is tall, reaching 30 m or more, frequently developing prominent buttresses at the base. The leaves are opposite or subopposite, oblong-elliptic, with an acuminate apex and entire to crenulate margins, and often bear a pair of glands near the base of the petiole. The flowers are small, numerous and bisexual, borne in large, much-branched terminal and axillary panicles, giving rise to the species epithet "myriocarpa" ("many-fruited"). The fruit is a small, two-winged, samaroid nutlet that turns pink to crimson in dense masses, a striking feature that aids wind dispersal.

Terminalia belongs to the pantropical Combretaceae and includes many ecologically and economically important timber trees. Terminalia myriocarpa yields a useful general-purpose hardwood and is a significant component of lowland evergreen forest. Although locally common over a wide range and not globally threatened, its lowland forest habitat is under pressure from logging and land conversion across parts of its distribution.

Author: Van Heurck & Müll. Arg. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Exell: Combretaceae revisions

Trochodendraceae

Tetracentron sinense

by GP Jürgens

Oliv.

Bhutan2015 34
Bhutan Thimphu 2200m, October
Bh2008 43 G76
Bhutan Thimphu 2200m, April
Bh09 209 P350
Bhutan Thimphu 2200m, April

Description

Tetracentron sinense is a deciduous tree of the eastern Himalaya and the mountains of central and southwestern China, recorded by GBIF from China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Vietnam (with cultivated records in Europe and North America) across about 940 georeferenced occurrences. It is a tree of cool, moist temperate broadleaf and mixed forest, growing in valleys, on shaded slopes and along streamsides, generally between about 1,700 and 3,500 m. The cited records from Thimphu in western Bhutan at around 2,200 m, photographed in both April and October, span the leafing-out and the autumnal phases of its annual cycle and place it well within the temperate forest belt of the inner Himalaya, where it occurs scattered among other broadleaved trees.

The tree has a straight trunk and bears its leaves in two kinds of position: simple, alternate, long-petioled leaves on long shoots and solitary leaves terminating short spur shoots. The leaves are ovate to broadly ovate, cordate at the base, acuminate, finely serrate, and conspicuously palmately veined from the base. The minute, perfect flowers are densely crowded on slender, pendulous, catkin-like spikes; each tetramerous flower has four tepals, four stamens and a four-carpellate ovary. The fruit is a small four-locular capsule that splits to release tiny winged seeds. Anatomically the wood is remarkable for being vesselless, the water-conducting tissue consisting only of tracheids.

Tetracentron sinense is one of only two genera in the small, isolated family Trochodendraceae (the other being Trochodendron), an ancient and phylogenetically basal lineage of eudicots whose vesselless wood is regarded as a primitive or secondarily reduced condition of great interest to plant systematists and to studies of angiosperm wood evolution. As a relict species with a disjunct, fragmented distribution, it is of significant conservation concern: it is legally protected in China and assessed as near-threatened, its populations reduced by logging and habitat loss, making it an emblematic "living-fossil" tree of the East Asian temperate flora.

Author: Oliv. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Endress: systematics and floral morphology of Trochodendraceae

Apiaceae

Tetrataenium nepalense

by GP Jürgens

(D.Don) Manden.

Bh09 71 P123
Bhutan Jili-La 3600m, June

Description

Tetrataenium nepalense is a tall Himalayan umbellifer distributed from Nepal and northern India through Bhutan into south-western China and Myanmar. Its 266 GBIF records lie within this native arc, indicating a widespread montane species of the Eastern and Central Himalaya. It occupies subalpine and alpine meadows, open slopes, forest margins and clearings, generally between about 3000 and 4000 m, where it is a characteristic robust herb of moist high-altitude grassland. The plant photographed at Jili-La in Bhutan at about 3600 m in June illustrates the species at its early-summer flowering on these damp, herb-rich montane slopes.

It is a stout, erect biennial or perennial herb arising from a thick taproot, with hollow, ridged, often pubescent stems. The large leaves are pinnate to ternately compound, the broad leaflets ovate, lobed and toothed, the lower leaves long-petiolate with conspicuous sheathing bases. The inflorescence is a large terminal compound umbel with numerous rays; the small white flowers are often radiant, the marginal petals of the outer flowers enlarged. The fruit is a flattened, broadly ovate to obovate, dorsally compressed schizocarp with conspicuous oil ducts (vittae) and narrowly winged lateral ribs.

Long known as Heracleum nepalense (a name preserved in its WordPress URL), the species was transferred to the segregate genus Tetrataenium, distinguished from Heracleum by features of the vittae and fruit. Its hogweed-like habit and large radiant umbels are typical of the group. Widespread and locally common across its range, T. nepalense is not considered threatened and is a prominent component of high Himalayan meadow vegetation.

Author: (D.Don) Manden. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Pimenov & Kljuykov Umbelliferae revision

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum chelidonii

by GP Jürgens

DC.

BhutanPG2011 384
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September
Bhutan2012 33
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September
Bhutan2012 325
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3600m September
Nepal 95 137 P230 ergebnis
Nepal South of Rupina La 3650m October

Description

Thalictrum chelidonii is a Himalayan meadow-rue distributed through Nepal, north-east India, Bhutan and south-west China, with 178 georeferenced occurrences. It grows in moist, often partly shaded sites along forest margins, in subalpine scrub, on grassy and rocky slopes and beside streams in the upper temperate to subalpine zones. The cited collections at Shele-La and Dochu-La in Bhutan (both about 3600 m, September) and south of Rupina La in Nepal (3650 m, October) reflect its typical altitudinal range of roughly 2700-4000 m, where it flowers and fruits late in the growing season.

It is an erect perennial herb with slender, branching, often glaucous stems and large, two- to three-times ternately or pinnately compound leaves; the leaflets are rounded to obovate, lobed and toothed, recalling those of Aquilegia. Unlike many wind-pollinated meadow-rues, T. chelidonii has conspicuous flowers in which the four or five petaloid sepals are well developed, lilac to rose-purple, surrounding numerous spreading stamens with slender filaments. The carpels are several and free, ripening into a cluster of stipitate, longitudinally ribbed achenes that hang on slender stalks.

Within Ranunculaceae the genus Thalictrum is distinctive for its apetalous flowers in which sepals and stamens provide the floral display; the showy coloured sepals of this species point to insect rather than purely wind pollination. The pendent, winged-ribbed achenes aid dispersal. Widespread and locally common across the central and eastern Himalaya, the species is of no conservation concern, and like several relatives it contains isoquinoline alkaloids of ethnomedicinal interest.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Tamura Ranunculaceae treatment (Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien)

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum javanicum

by GP Jürgens

Blume

Bhutan2012 407
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, June

Description

Thalictrum javanicum Blume is a widespread meadow-rue ranging across tropical and subtropical Asia. GBIF documents some 1366 occurrences from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and southern China through Taiwan, Japan and into the Malesian uplands of Indonesia. It occupies moist, shaded habitats: streamsides, forest floors, damp ravines, clearings and grassy banks, mainly at middle elevations between roughly 1500 and 3000 m, descending lower in the tropics. The plant photographed near Wangdi in Bhutan at 2500 m in June, during the early monsoon, reflects its association with the cool, humid broad-leaved and conifer forest belt of the Himalaya.

It is a glabrous perennial herb forming erect stems 30-100 cm tall from a short rhizome. The leaves are two- to four-times ternately compound, the ultimate leaflets obovate to suborbicular, three-lobed and crenate at the apex, thin in texture, with conspicuous stipels at the divisions of the petiole. The inflorescence is a lax terminal panicle of small, apetalous flowers; the perianth consists of inconspicuous, caducous greenish sepals, the floral display provided instead by the numerous spreading stamens with slender filaments and oblong anthers. The fruit is a cluster of sessile to shortly stipitate, ribbed, ellipsoid achenes tipped by a short curved beak.

Thalictrum is a large, taxonomically intricate genus characterised by reduced, wind- and generalist-insect-pollinated flowers and considerable variation in stamen and achene morphology, generating a complex synonymy across its broad range. T. javanicum is among the most ecologically plastic species, tolerating a wide altitudinal and geographic span, which accounts for its abundant collection record. It is a common, unthreatened component of Asian montane forest understoreys, and several Thalictrum species, including this one, contain isoquinoline alkaloids used in regional ethnomedicine.

Author: Blume · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Java, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum leuconotum

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

BhutanPG2011 817 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3700m July

Also: Iris Clarkei Hook.f.

Description

Thalictrum leuconotum is an alpine meadow rue distributed across the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Sino-Himalayan ranges, with verified records from China, Nepal and Bhutan (GBIF documents some 152 occurrences). It inhabits subalpine and alpine meadows, open grassy slopes, forest margins and the rocky banks of seasonal streams, typically between about 3000 and 4200 m. The species was photographed on the Chele-La in western Bhutan at 3700 m in July, a high pass where it flowers among dwarf rhododendron scrub and herbaceous turf during the brief growing season.

The plant is an erect perennial herb arising from a short, fibrous-rooted rhizome, the stems glabrous to minutely pubescent and branched in the upper part. The leaves are several times ternately compound, the ultimate leaflets thin, obovate to suborbicular and shallowly lobed or crenate, often glaucous and conspicuously whitish beneath, a feature alluded to in the epithet "leuconotum" (white-backed). The inflorescence is a lax, spreading panicle of small apetalous flowers; the showy parts are the numerous pendulous stamens with slender filaments, while the four caducous sepals are greenish to purplish. The fruit is a cluster of small, ribbed, stipitate achenes.

Within Thalictrum, a large and taxonomically intricate genus, T. leuconotum belongs to the broad assemblage of Sino-Himalayan species characterised by reduced perianths and reliance on wind pollination. Its glaucous, white-backed foliage and montane ecology distinguish it from sympatric congeners. As a widespread high-elevation herb of relatively undisturbed alpine pastures, it is not considered threatened, though localised grazing pressure and habitat change may affect populations across its range.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Monograph of Thalictrum (Boivin)

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum reniforme

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Garw 2005 277 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2650m, October

Description

Thalictrum reniforme is a perennial herb distributed across the Himalayan arc from northern India through Nepal and Bhutan to southwestern China (Yunnan, Xizang, Sichuan). It occurs in moist, shaded habitats including forest margins, thickets, stream banks, and damp meadows at elevations of 1,800–3,500 m. The species is well represented in the western Himalayan foothills, as demonstrated by collections from Kunol in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India, at 2,650 m, where plants have been observed in fruit as late as October.
The plant produces erect to ascending stems 30–80 cm tall from a short, fibrous-rooted rhizome. The leaves are bi- to triternately compound; the leaflets are distinctive for the genus, being reniform to orbicular, 1–3 cm wide, with a crenate to shallowly lobed margin. The leaflet surfaces are thin-textured and often glaucous beneath. The inflorescence is a lax, terminal panicle bearing numerous small, apetalous flowers. The sepals are four, ovate, greenish to purplish, caducous. The stamens are pendulous, with slender filaments and oblong anthers. The achenes are few per flower, stipitate, fusiform to obliquely ovoid, ribbed longitudinally, 3–5 mm long including the stipe.
Thalictrum reniforme is readily distinguished from most congeners by its conspicuously reniform leaflets, a character that inspired Wallich's specific epithet. The species belongs to a taxonomically challenging genus in which species boundaries are often obscured by morphological plasticity and hybridisation. With approximately 248 occurrence records in GBIF spanning India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China, it is moderately well collected. Ecologically, it contributes to the herbaceous understorey diversity of Himalayan temperate forests. No specific conservation concerns have been raised, though continued monitoring of its forest-dependent habitats remains advisable given ongoing pressures from logging and agricultural encroachment.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Tamura: Thalictrum in Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien (1995)

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum rostellatum

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. et Thomson

BhutanPG2011 73

Description

Thalictrum rostellatum is a meadow-rue of the temperate to subalpine Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar, with some 258 occurrences aggregated in GBIF. It favours shaded, humus-rich slopes, the margins of forest, scrub and streamsides, and damp grassy banks within the broad-leaved and conifer forest belt of the Eastern Himalaya. Across its range it ascends through the montane and lower subalpine zones, where it grows in the dappled understorey alongside other moisture-loving herbs, flowering through the summer monsoon months.

It is a slender, glabrous perennial herb with a thin, creeping rhizome and erect, sparingly branched stems. The leaves are ternately decompound, the ultimate leaflets thin and membranous, obovate to broadly cuneate and shallowly lobed or toothed at the apex, often glaucous beneath. The inflorescence is a lax, few-flowered panicle of small, nodding flowers; as in the genus, the four pale sepals are caducous and petals are wanting, the floral display reduced to the pendulous stamens with filiform filaments and delicate anthers. The carpels are few and stipitate, ripening into small, stipitate achenes that bear a conspicuous slender beak, the rostellum from which the epithet derives.

The markedly beaked, stalked achenes are the principal character separating T. rostellatum from related Himalayan meadow-rues such as T. virgatum and T. reniforme. Like most Thalictrum it is anemophilous, the reduced, scentless flowers and exserted stamens reflecting wind pollination. Widespread and locally frequent through the Eastern Himalaya, it is of no particular conservation concern, though as a forest-understorey element its persistence depends on intact montane woodland.

Author: Hook.f. et Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Boivin's revisionary studies of Thalictrum

Ranunculaceae

Thalictrum virgatum 

by G & P Jürgens

Hook. f. & Thomson

Nepal 99 893 ergebnis
West-Nepal Suli-Khola 2800m, July

Description

Thalictrum virgatum Hook.f. & Thomson is a widespread Sino-Himalayan meadow rue ranging from the Himalaya of Nepal, India and Bhutan eastward into south-western and central China; the comparatively large GBIF dataset of 498 occurrences attests to its abundance across the temperate Himalayan belt. It favours moist, shaded forest floors, streamsides, scrub margins and grassy slopes within the temperate to subalpine zone, broadly between 2400 and 4000 m. The photographed plant along the Suli-Khola in West Nepal at about 2800 m, flowering in July, is typical of its monsoon-season anthesis in the cool, humid, well-watered understorey of the moist temperate forest.

The species is a slender, erect, glabrous perennial herb with wiry, virgate stems arising from a short rootstock. The leaves are alternate and two- to three-pinnately compound, the ultimate leaflets small, thin, obovate to orbicular and shallowly three-lobed or crenate. The inflorescence is a lax, few-flowered, diffusely branched panicle or raceme; the small, pendulous flowers lack petals and instead bear four to five petaloid, caducous sepals that are whitish, pink-tinged or purplish. The numerous stamens have slender filaments and conspicuous anthers, giving the open flowers a delicate, dangling aspect. The fruit is a small cluster of stipitate, ribbed achenes.

Thalictrum is a large north-temperate genus of wind- and insect-pollinated petal-less Ranunculaceae, and T. virgatum belongs to the slender-stemmed, lax-panicled assemblage of the Sino-Himalaya. Its delicate habit and nodding pink-tinted flowers have brought it into specialist cultivation as a woodland ornamental. Being widespread, ecologically tolerant and locally common throughout the moist temperate Himalaya, it is of no conservation concern, and like many congeners it contains benzylisoquinoline alkaloids of pharmacological interest.

Author: Hook. f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, B. A. Lecoyer — Monographie du genre Thalictrum