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.

Urticaceae

Boehmeria ternifolia

by G & P Jürgens

D.Don

Sikkim 2006 258 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Lingza 1300m, May

Description

Boehmeria ternifolia is a shrubby member of the nettle family ranging through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent regions, recorded from Nepal, India and Bhutan, with GBIF documenting nearly two hundred occurrences across these countries; scattered records from France and the United States represent herbarium and cultivated holdings rather than wild populations. It is a plant of warm-temperate to subtropical broadleaved forest, favouring shaded ravines, streamsides, moist forest margins and roadside banks, typically between roughly 1000 and 2200 m. The specimen illustrated from Lingza in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal at about 1300 m, in May, is representative of these humid mid-elevation forests of the Sikkim-Darjeeling Himalaya, where high rainfall and deep shade favour the soft-leaved, non-stinging habit of the genus.

The plant is an erect shrub or subshrub with woody lower stems and herbaceous, often four-angled younger branches that lack stinging hairs. The leaves are characteristically arranged in whorls of three (occasionally opposite), the basis of the epithet ternifolia; they are ovate to lanceolate, with a long-acuminate apex, serrate margins and a three-veined base, the lamina thin and somewhat rough above. Stipules are present and soon falling. The minute unisexual flowers are borne in slender, interrupted axillary spikes or glomerules, the staminate flowers with a four-lobed perianth and four stamens, the pistillate flowers tubular and enclosing a single ovary with a filiform stigma. The fruit is a small achene tightly invested by the persistent perianth.

Boehmeria is a pantropical and warm-temperate genus best known for ramie (B. nivea), an important bast-fibre crop, and several Himalayan species likewise yield serviceable cordage fibres from their stems. The whorled, ternate leaf arrangement of B. ternifolia is a useful diagnostic character separating it from the many opposite-leaved congeners of the region. As a common, ecologically tolerant forest-edge shrub with a wide elevational and geographic span, it is of no conservation concern, and its abundance along disturbed margins suggests considerable resilience to moderate human impact within the eastern Himalayan forest belt.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1 Part 2, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of Boehmeria (Urticaceae) (W.T. Wang and C.J. Chen)

Urticaceae

Boehmeria virgata subsp. macrophylla

by GP Jürgens

(Hornem.) Friis & Wilmot-Dear

Bhutan2012 730
Bhutan Galephu 500m, October

Description

Boehmeria virgata subsp. macrophylla (Hornem.) Friis & Wilmot-Dear is a widespread paleotropical shrub of the nettle family, recorded by GBIF in over 2500 occurrences across an extraordinarily broad range that includes India (IN), Nepal (NP), China (CN), Thailand (TH) and Indonesia (ID), as well as much of tropical Africa (Tanzania, Cameroon, Gabon, Uganda, Angola), the Indian Ocean islands (Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius, Comoros) and Australia (AU). It occupies forest margins, streambanks, clearings and disturbed secondary vegetation at low to mid elevations, and was photographed at Galephu in southern Bhutan at 500 m in October, in the warm subtropical foothills.

The plant is a shrub or coarse perennial herb with terete, often pubescent stems. The leaves are large, alternate or subopposite, broadly ovate to elliptic with a serrate margin, acuminate apex and three prominent basal veins, the lower surface frequently pale and softly hairy. As in all Boehmeria, the foliage lacks the stinging hairs found elsewhere in Urticaceae. The plant is monoecious, with minute unisexual flowers crowded into globose clusters arranged along slender, often elongate, interrupted spike-like inflorescences; female flowers have a tubular perianth enclosing a single ovule. The fruit is a small achene enclosed in the persistent, sometimes winged perianth.

This taxon belongs to a polymorphic complex that has been treated under various names including Boehmeria macrophylla, and the subspecific rank reflects Friis and Wilmot-Dear's revision integrating the Asian and African material. Wind pollination and the dust-like achenes account for its vast distribution. Stem fibres of Boehmeria species, notably ramie, are economically important, and the plant readily colonises disturbed ground, making it a frequent component of regenerating tropical and subtropical forest.

Author: (Hornem.) Friis & Wilmot-Dear · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Urticaceae revision (Friis & Wilmot-Dear)

Orobanchaceae

Boschniakia himalaica

by G & P Jürgens

J. D. Hooker et Thomson

BhutanPG2011 101
Bhutan Chognam 3240m, June

Description

A non-photosynthetic, root-parasitic herb of the eastern Himalaya and East Asia, recorded from China, Taiwan, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Japan and Myanmar, with about 711 GBIF occurrences (a few outlying entries reflect data errors). It parasitises the roots of woody Ericaceae, particularly Rhododendron and Gaultheria, and is found in subalpine shrubberies, forest margins and moist thicket floors, generally between about 2700 and 4000 m. The illustrated plant was photographed in June at Chognam in Bhutan at around 3240 m, a typical rhododendron-dominated montane habitat.

Lacking chlorophyll, the plant draws all nutrition from its host. It arises from a swollen, tuberous, scale-covered basal organ attached to the host root, from which emerge fleshy, erect, unbranched stems coloured purplish-brown, yellowish or reddish and clothed only in small scale-leaves. The inflorescence is a dense, cylindrical, many-flowered terminal spike. Each flower is subtended by a bract and has a short cup-like calyx and a two-lipped, tubular corolla in dull purple to brownish-yellow, with a hooded upper lip and a shorter spreading lower lip; four didynamous stamens are inserted in the tube. The superior ovary ripens into a capsule packed with numerous minute, dust-like seeds adapted to wind dispersal.

Accepted by POWO and GBIF, B. himalaica is one of a small genus of broomrape relatives specialised on ericaceous hosts. Its life cycle is intimately governed by host availability and the germination of its tiny seeds in response to host-root chemical cues. Because it depends entirely on healthy Rhododendron-rich communities, it serves as an indicator of intact subalpine ericaceous vegetation. It is widespread but inconspicuous and locally sporadic; no significant conservation concern is recognised at present.

Author: J. D. Hooker et Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Beck monograph of Orobanchaceae

Paulowniaceae

Brandisia rosea

by G & P Jürgens

W.W.Sm.

Bhutan2012 413
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September

Description

Brandisia rosea is a shrubby, often scandent plant of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded by GBIF (about 63 occurrences) from China, India and Bhutan, a small total that reflects its restricted range and rather localised occurrence. It inhabits open forests, thickets, forest margins, scrub and rocky slopes in the warm-temperate montane zone, broadly between 2000 and 3000 m. The plant photographed near Wangdi in Bhutan at about 2700 m in September lies within this band and within the autumn flowering season, when its rosy blooms appear among the post-monsoon vegetation of the eastern Himalayan hillsides, a region where the genus reaches the western edge of its distribution.

It is a woody shrub, sometimes clambering or half-scandent, with young branches and foliage characteristically clothed in a fine stellate or scaly indumentum giving a greyish or rusty cast. The leaves are opposite, simple, ovate to lanceolate, entire or nearly so, and often tomentose beneath. The flowers are showy and borne in the leaf axils or in short clusters; the calyx is campanulate and toothed, and the corolla is conspicuously two-lipped (bilabiate), rose-pink to reddish, with the upper lip arched and the lower spreading and lobed, the form and colour suiting pollination by bees or birds. There are four didynamous stamens. The fruit is a loculicidal capsule containing numerous small seeds.

The genus Brandisia has had an unsettled familial history, long placed in the broadly defined Scrophulariaceae and subsequently reassigned; molecular and morphological studies have aligned it with the small woody clade comprising Paulownia and its relatives, hence its treatment here under Paulowniaceae (it is elsewhere placed in Orobanchaceae by some authors, and its position remains debated). Whatever its precise placement, Brandisia is a distinctive Sino-Himalayan element of montane shrubberies. With its limited range and modest number of records B. rosea has not been formally assessed for conservation, but as a habitat-specific montane shrub it would merit monitoring against forest disturbance in its core eastern Himalayan area.

Author: W.W.Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Hong et al. Scrophulariaceae of China

Araliaceae

Brassaiopsis glomerulata

by GP Jürgens

(Blume) Regel

Bhutan2014 186
Bhutan Trashyangtse 2150m, May

Description

Brassaiopsis glomerulata is a small tree or large shrub of the eastern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, distributed from India, Nepal and Bhutan through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia into southern China; its c. 954 georeferenced records make it the most widespread member of its genus. It inhabits evergreen broadleaf forest, secondary woodland, ravines and forest margins, generally between 1000 and 2400 m. The plant photographed at Trashyangtse in eastern Bhutan at 2150 m in May grows in the humid subtropical to warm-temperate forest belt where it occupies the understorey and disturbed forest gaps along streams.

It is an evergreen, sparsely branched tree to c. 8-10 m, the young stems and petioles often armed with short prickles. The leaves are large and palmately compound or deeply palmately lobed, long-petioled, with serrate, acuminate leaflets, clustered toward the branch tips in typical araliaceous fashion. The inflorescence is a large terminal panicle of numerous small umbels, the flowers densely aggregated into globose clusters (hence "glomerulata"). The flowers are small, greenish to whitish, with five petals and five stamens and an inferior ovary crowned by a short style. The fruit is a small, globose, fleshy purple-black drupe containing flattened seeds.

Described originally in Hedera by Blume and transferred to Brassaiopsis by Regel, the species belongs to the Araliaceae, the ivy and ginseng family. Its small drupes are dispersed by frugivorous birds, while the open umbels are visited by generalist insects. The leaves and bark feature in regional ethnomedicine. Widespread and adaptable to disturbed habitats, B. glomerulata is not considered threatened across its broad range.

Author: (Blume) Regel · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Thailand, Lowry & Wen's studies of Asian Araliaceae

Araliaceae

Brassaiopsis hainla

by GP Jürgens

Seem.

Bhutan2015 205
Bhutan Zhemgang 910m, October

Description

Brassaiopsis hainla is a small tree or treelet of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, distributed from northern India, Nepal and Bhutan through southern China into Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. GBIF records some 350 occurrences, the core in China, India, Nepal and Myanmar. It is a plant of subtropical to warm-temperate broad-leaved forest, growing along streamsides, ravine slopes, forest margins and secondary woodland, broadly from the foothills up to around 1500–2000 m. The individual shown was photographed in Bhutan at Zhemgang at 910 m in October, in humid hill forest characteristic of its lower-montane habitat.

The plant is a sparingly branched small tree with stout, often prickly stems and large, palmately lobed or palmately compound leaves clustered toward the branch tips on long petioles; the lobes are oblong-lanceolate, acuminate and serrate, and young growth is frequently armed with scattered prickles. The minute, greenish-white flowers are five-merous and borne in umbels arranged into large terminal, paniculate or racemose compound inflorescences. Each flower has a reduced calyx, free petals and an inferior ovary crowned by a stylar column. The fruit is a small, globose to slightly flattened drupe-like berry, ripening dark, containing several flattened pyrenes.

Brassaiopsis is a genus of the Araliaceae centred on the Sino-Himalaya and Indochina, allied to Aralia and Schefflera and distinguished by its armed stems, palmate leaves and umbellate inflorescences. The young shoots and leaves of B. hainla are eaten as a vegetable in parts of the Himalaya, and the species has local ethnobotanical use. It is reasonably widespread across its montane forest range and is not regarded as globally threatened, though it depends on the persistence of intact broad-leaved forest.

Author: Seem. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, An Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, A Systematic Revision of the Genus Brassaiopsis (Araliaceae)

Araliaceae

Brassaiopsis hispida

by G & P Jürgens

Seem.

Sikkim 2006 309 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1750m, May
Sikkim 2006 455 ergebnis
Sikkim Ringi-Chu 2300m, May

Description

Brassaiopsis hispida Seem. is a prickly shrub or small tree of the ginseng family ranging through the eastern Himalaya and the Sino-Himalayan region. GBIF records document it in India, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar, reflecting a distribution centred on the moist eastern Himalayan foothills and adjacent uplands. It occupies humid broad-leaved evergreen and semi-evergreen forest, forest margins and ravines, typically between roughly 1,200 and 2,500 m. The collections illustrated from Chaana in West Bengal at 1,750 m and from the Ringi-Chu in Sikkim at 2,300 m, both flowering in May, are representative of its damp montane forest habitat.

The plant is an armed shrub to small tree, the stems and petioles bearing scattered prickles and a hispid indumentum. The large, long-petiolate leaves are palmately lobed or compound, with the lobes or leaflets coarsely serrate and abruptly acuminate, the surfaces rough-hairy. The inflorescence is a terminal panicle of umbels bearing small, greenish to yellowish, functionally polygamous flowers with five petals and a five-merous ovary. The fruit is a small subglobose drupe with the persistent styles at the apex.

Brassaiopsis is a Palaeotropical Asian genus closely allied to Trevesia and Aralia, distinguished by its prickly habit and lobed leaves. B. hispida is one of several morphologically variable Himalayan species, and the genus has attracted phytochemical interest for its triterpenoid saponins. Though locally common in suitable forest, it is sensitive to habitat clearance in the lower hills.

Author: Seem. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Lowry & Frodin: Studies in Asian Araliaceae

Araliaceae

Brassaiopsis mitis

by GP Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2015 583
Bhutan Gasa 2000m, October
Bhutan2015 590
Bhutan Gasa 2200m, October

Description

Brassaiopsis mitis is an East Himalayan small tree or large shrub of the ginseng family, GBIF holding only about 61 occurrences from India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar. It inhabits humid, shaded broadleaved and evergreen montane forest, occurring along stream gullies, ravine slopes and forest margins generally between about 1500 and 2500 m. The individuals photographed from the Gasa district of northern Bhutan at 2000 and 2200 m, in October, are typical of its occurrence in cool, moist mid-montane forest of deep shade and high humidity, the autumn date corresponding to its fruiting season.

It is an evergreen shrub or small tree to several metres tall, the stems and petioles often prickly, as in many species of Brassaiopsis. The leaves are large, long-petiolate and palmately lobed or palmately compound, the lobes or leaflets entire to serrate, giving the crown a coarse, tropical aspect. The minute, greenish flowers are five-merous with an inferior ovary and are aggregated into umbels grouped into large terminal panicles. The fruit is a small, fleshy, more or less globose drupe crowned by the persistent stylopodium, ripening dark and containing a few flattened pyrenes.

Described by C. B. Clarke, B. mitis belongs to the predominantly Sino-Himalayan and Southeast Asian genus Brassaiopsis within Araliaceae, characterised by prickly, large-leaved understorey trees. With its few records and restricted East Himalayan range it is of regional biogeographic interest, dependent on intact mid-montane forest. Ecologically its umbellate inflorescences attract generalist insects, while its drupaceous fruit is dispersed by frugivorous birds and mammals of the forest interior.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Lowry & Frodin studies of Brassaiopsis (Araliaceae)

Brassicaceae

Braya humilis 

by G & P Jürgens

(C.A.Mey.) B.L.Rob.

BhutanPG2011 204

Bhutan Kupong 3250m, June

Description

Braya humilis (C.A.Mey.) B.L.Rob. is a widely distributed arctic-alpine crucifer with a circumpolar to Central Asian range, recorded by GBIF from Canada, the United States, Russia, Greenland, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Scandinavia, with over 4200 occurrences. In the Himalaya it occupies high alpine pastures, stony slopes and moraines, as exemplified by the Bhutanese collection from Kupong at 3250 m in June, favouring calcareous, base-rich soils of the upper subalpine to alpine zone.

It is a small biennial or short-lived perennial herb with a stout taproot crowned by a leaf rosette and one to several ascending stems. The basal leaves are linear-oblanceolate, entire to remotely dentate and somewhat fleshy, bearing simple and forked trichomes typical of the genus; cauline leaves are few and reduced. The inflorescence is a compact, bracteate raceme that elongates in fruit, the small flowers with four white to pale lilac petals and the tetradynamous androecium of six stamens. The fruit is a short, terete to slightly flattened silique, often torulose, narrowed to a short persistent style and containing biseriate seeds.

Braya humilis is a polymorphic, taxonomically complex species within tribe Euclidieae, with numerous infraspecific taxa and regional segregates across its vast amphi-Beringian and montane Asian distribution. Its great ecological amplitude and association with cold, open, calcareous habitats make it a classic arctic-alpine disjunct, linking high-latitude tundra floras with the Himalayan and Central Asian mountains. Some peripheral arctic populations are of national conservation interest, though the species is secure overall.

Author: (C.A.Mey.) B.L.Rob. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 8, Flora of Pakistan, Warwick & Al-Shehbaz studies of tribe Euclidieae (Brassicaceae)

Primulaceae

Bryocarpum himalaicum

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2014 497
Bhutan Phobjika 2800m, May
Bhutan2014 499
Bhutan Phobjika 2800m, May

Description

Bryocarpum himalaicum is the sole species of its genus, a primuloid herb endemic to the eastern Himalaya and recorded from Bhutan, India (Sikkim), Nepal and southern China; GBIF documents around 86 occurrences across this narrow range. It grows in moss-rich, humus-laden ground in cool, shaded forest, among rhododendron and bamboo thickets and on damp, mossy banks in the upper temperate and subalpine zones, typically between about 2700 and 3700 m. The illustrated plant from Phobjika in central Bhutan at 2800 m, flowering in May, is characteristic of these humid, sheltered montane habitats.

It is a small, delicate perennial herb arising from a slender rhizome, forming a rosette of long-petioled, ovate to cordate, crenate leaves with a soft texture. The flowers are solitary and nodding on slender scapes, the corolla being narrowly tubular to bell-shaped and clear yellow, with a slender tube expanding into five spreading lobes, evoking a miniature pendent primrose. A distinctive feature giving the genus its name is the elongate, beaked, septicidal capsule that buries or lowers itself among the moss as it matures before releasing the seeds.

Bryocarpum is a monotypic genus traditionally allied to Primula and the cyclamenoid primulas within Primulaceae, distinguished by its solitary yellow flowers and peculiar elongate fruiting capsule. Its restricted high-Himalayan range and dependence on undisturbed mossy forest floor make it a botanically significant relict of conservation interest, vulnerable to habitat disturbance and changing montane moisture regimes.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Primula (J. Richards monograph)