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.

Asteraceae

Anaphalis margaritacea

by GP Jürgens

(L.) Benth. & Hook.f.

Bhutan2012 98
Bhutan Shele-La, 3600m September

Description

Among the most widely distributed of all Asteraceae, Anaphalis margaritacea spans a remarkable circumboreal and montane range, documented from North America (US, CA) and eastern Asia (CN, JP, TW) across the Himalaya (NP, IN) to a broad swathe of temperate Europe (GB, SE, DE, CZ, FR, AT, NL, CH, DK, NO, FI) and Russia, with more than 62,000 GBIF occurrences attesting to its abundance and partly naturalised status in the Old World. It favours open, well-drained sunny situations: grassy slopes, forest margins, roadsides, screes and subalpine meadows. In the eastern Himalaya it ascends well into the high mountains, as seen in the photographed population on the Shele-La in Bhutan at around 3600 m in September, where it flowers late in the season on stony alpine turf.

A perennial herb arising from a creeping rhizome, it forms erect, simple stems 20–60 cm tall, densely clothed throughout in white woolly-tomentose indumentum. The leaves are alternate, sessile, linear to linear-lanceolate, often somewhat decurrent, green and thinly arachnoid above and persistently white-tomentose beneath, with revolute margins. The inflorescence is a dense terminal corymb of numerous small capitula; each head is surrounded by several series of pearly-white, papery, radiating involucral bracts that give the plant its lasting ornamental quality. The florets are functionally unisexual, the species being largely dioecious, with tubular yellowish disc florets. The fruit is a small oblong cypsela bearing a pappus of slender barbellate bristles aiding wind dispersal.

The pearly everlasting is the type species of Anaphalis, a genus of the tribe Gnaphalieae centred on Asia, and its papery bracts retain form when dried, long valuing it in floristry. Ecologically it is a colonist of disturbed and pioneer ground, behaving as a weakly invasive naturalised plant in parts of Europe. Of least conservation concern given its vast range and ecological tolerance, it nonetheless provides a useful nectar source for late-season pollinators and larval food for certain lepidoptera.

Author: (L.) Benth. & Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Anaphalis monograph (Hilliard & Burtt, Gnaphalieae)

Asteraceae

Anaphalis nepalensis

by GP Jürgens

(Spreng.) Hand.-Mazz.

Garh 07 207 ergebnis
India Garhwal Panwali 3300m, June

Description

Anaphalis nepalensis is a widespread Sino-Himalayan everlasting distributed across China, Taiwan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Myanmar, with over 3600 georeferenced records making it one of the better-documented Himalayan composites. It occupies open alpine and subalpine meadows, grassy slopes, rocky pastures and forest clearings, generally between about 3000 and 4500 m. The photographed plant from Panwali in the Garhwal Himalaya at 3300 m, flowering in June, typifies its grassy mid-alpine habitat where it forms low cushions or spreading patches in short turf.

It is a perennial, white-woolly herb arising from a creeping rhizome, with prostrate to ascending stems clothed in dense grey-white tomentum. The leaves are oblanceolate to spathulate, often crowded in a basal rosette and reducing upward, cottony on both surfaces. The capitula are arranged singly or in small terminal clusters and are dioecious or subdioecious; the conspicuous part is the spreading ring of dry, papery, pearly-white involucral bracts surrounding the small yellowish disc florets, an arrangement that gives the genus its "pearly everlasting" character. The achenes bear a pappus of fine barbellate bristles.

The persistent, scarious bracts retain their form long after flowering, an adaptation suiting the plant to harsh, exposed alpine conditions and aiding identification. Anaphalis nepalensis is a variable species with several recognised varieties differing in stature and leaf form, and it is sometimes confused with related Himalayan congeners. Common and ecologically adaptable, it is not of conservation concern and is occasionally grown as a rock-garden ornamental.

Author: (Spreng.) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Compositae monographs (Handel-Mazzetti)

Asteraceae

Anaphalis nepalensis var. monocephala

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Hand.-Mazz.

Sikkim2003 187 P255
Sikkim Dzongri 4000m 08.2003
Nepal 99 274 ergebnis
West-Nepal Loccu 3800m, June
Garw 2005 150 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Kuari-Pass 3900m, September

Description

Anaphalis nepalensis var. monocephala is a high-alpine pearly everlasting of the Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan, Taiwan and south-west China across 426 georeferenced occurrences. It occupies open alpine turf, screes, rocky slopes and gravelly moraine in the upper alpine zone. The cited collections at Dzongri in Sikkim (4000 m), Loccu in west Nepal (3800 m) and the Kuari Pass in Garhwal (3900 m) confirm its preference for elevations of roughly 3500-4800 m, where it flowers through the short summer and into early autumn. The variety is distinguished from typical A. nepalensis chiefly by its solitary or few terminal capitula on dwarf, cushion-forming stems.

It is a low, mat- or cushion-forming perennial herb with a branched woody caudex and short, white-woolly (lanate) stems and foliage. The leaves are spathulate to oblanceolate, crowded toward the base, densely grey-tomentose and frequently bearing a tuft of wool at the apex. The capitula are usually solitary (monocephalous), comparatively large, and surrounded by numerous papery, pearly-white, radiating involucral bracts that simulate ray florets; the true florets are small and yellowish, the plant being functionally dioecious. The fruit is a tiny cypsela crowned by a pappus of barbellate bristles.

The genus Anaphalis belongs to tribe Gnaphalieae (the cudweeds and everlastings), in which dry, persistent scarious bracts give the inflorescences their lasting quality. The white bracts and clustered florets attract small flies and bees, while the plumed cypselae are wind-dispersed. The variety is locally frequent in high Himalayan pastures and is not considered threatened, though sensitive to heavy grazing and trampling.

Author: (DC.) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Hilliard & Burtt Gnaphalieae studies

Asteraceae

Anaphalis royleana

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Garw 2005 297 ergebnis
India Garhwal Patanathi 3750m, October
Garw 2005 50 ergebnis

Description

Anaphalis royleana is a high-montane to subalpine perennial widely distributed across the Sino-Himalayan region, recorded from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China and Taiwan. With 482 georeferenced occurrences, it is one of the more frequently collected members of the genus, occupying open stony slopes, alpine meadows, grazed pastures and the margins of rhododendron and birch scrub. The species typically ranges between roughly 3000 and 4500 m; the plant photographed at Patanathi in Garhwal, India, at 3750 m in October exemplifies its preference for well-drained, sunny situations where it flowers and fruits late into the season.

The plant forms tufted clumps from a woody rootstock, with erect, simple, white-woolly (lanate) stems. The leaves are alternate, sessile and frequently decurrent, linear to oblong-lanceolate, entire-margined, and densely grey- to white-tomentose, the lower surface usually more persistently floccose than the upper. The capitula are small, numerous, and aggregated into dense terminal corymbs. Each head is subtended by several rows of dry, papery (scarious), pearly-white involucral bracts that give the genus its garden name; the florets are functionally unisexual, the central disc florets staminate and the marginal florets pistillate. The fruit is a small cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of slender, barbellate bristles facilitating wind dispersal.

Anaphalis is a large Old World genus closely allied to Helichrysum and Gnaphalium within the tribe Gnaphalieae, characterised by its dioecious or subdioecious capitula. A. royleana belongs to a taxonomically intricate complex of Himalayan everlastings in which leaf indumentum and bract form provide the principal diagnostic characters. Its broad elevational and geographic amplitude, tolerance of grazing, and effective anemochory render it secure, and it is not considered threatened.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flowers of the Himalaya (Polunin & Stainton), Anaphalis revisionary studies in Gnaphalieae

Asteraceae

Anaphalis triplinervis 

by GP Jürgens

Sims ex C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2015 408
Bhutan Tumching-La 4000m, October
Garw 2005 296 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kunol 2900m, September

Description

Anaphalis triplinervis is a widespread Himalayan everlasting recorded natively from Nepal, India, China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Myanmar and Afghanistan, and widely grown in gardens (hence European and North American records); GBIF holds over 900 occurrences. It is a plant of open subalpine and alpine slopes, grassy meadows, forest clearings and stony banks, ranging from about 2000 to over 4000 m. The photographed material is from Tumching-La in Bhutan at 4000 m in October and from Kunol in Garhwal, India, at 2900 m in September, spanning the autumn flowering across the central and eastern Himalaya.

The species is a tufted perennial herb with creeping rhizomes and erect, white-woolly stems. The leaves are alternate, oblong to obovate-lanceolate, sessile and often somewhat decurrent, with the three prominent longitudinal nerves that give the epithet "triplinervis"; they are green and thinly cobwebby above and densely white-tomentose beneath. The capitula are small and crowded in dense terminal corymbs, each surrounded by spreading, papery, pearly-white involucral bracts that form the showy "flower"; the true florets are small and yellowish, the plants typically dioecious or functionally so. The fruit is a tiny cypsela with a pappus of barbellate bristles.

Anaphalis belongs to the tribe Gnaphalieae, the cudweeds, and A. triplinervis is among the most familiar Himalayan species, its persistent papery bracts making it a popular everlasting for drying. Abundant and ecologically tolerant of grazed and disturbed slopes, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: Sims ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Revision of Asiatic Anaphalis (Gnaphalieae)

Asteraceae

Anaphalis xylorhiza

by G & P Jürgens

Sch.Bip. ex Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 260 P358
Sikkim Dzongri 4000m, July

Description

Anaphalis xylorhiza is a high-alpine pearly-everlasting of the eastern Himalaya, recorded from China, Nepal, India and Bhutan, with about 416 georeferenced occurrences indicating a fairly frequent species along the inner high ranges. It grows in alpine meadows, on stony slopes, screes and rocky ridges above the treeline, typically between roughly 3500 and 4800 m. The plant was photographed at Dzongri in Sikkim at 4000 m in July, a setting representative of its ecology, flowering at the height of the monsoon on open, well-drained, frequently grazed alpine ground.

As the epithet xylorhiza indicates, it is a perennial herb with a thick, woody rootstock from which arise low, white-woolly stems. The leaves are linear to narrowly oblong or spathulate, often crowded toward the base, grey-green and clothed in a dense persistent felt of appressed hairs on both surfaces, the bases sometimes decurrent. The capitula are small and aggregated into compact terminal corymbose clusters; each head is surrounded by dry, papery, pearly-white involucral bracts that give the genus its everlasting quality. The plants are essentially dioecious, with male and female heads on separate individuals, and the fruit is a minute cypsela bearing a pappus of slender bristles.

Anaphalis (tribe Gnaphalieae) is centred in Asia and is distinguished from the closely allied Antennaria and Helichrysum by its corymbose, scarious-bracted heads and its functionally dioecious breeding system; A. xylorhiza belongs to the woody-rooted, high-elevation Himalayan group. Its dense indumentum and persistent papery bracts are adaptations to cold, irradiation and desiccation in the alpine zone. Widespread and locally abundant, it is not considered threatened, although heavy summer grazing affects accessible populations.

Author: Sch.Bip. ex Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Hooker Flora of British India (Asteraceae)

Primulaceae

Androsace geranifolia

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2014 822
Bhutan Chele-La 3100m, May
Bhutan2014 1019
Bhutan Chele-La 3100m, May
Sikkim2004 376 P653
Sikkim/India Lachung 2800m May

Description

Androsace geranifolia is a Himalayan rock-jasmine of the temperate to subalpine zone, ranging through the central and eastern Himalaya from Nepal through Sikkim and India into Bhutan. GBIF currently holds no georeferenced occurrences and treats the name as doubtful at present, so its distribution is best inferred from herbarium and floristic records, which place it in moist, shaded forest, mossy banks, rock ledges and stream gullies between roughly 2500 and 3500 m. The documented sites at Chele-La in Bhutan at 3100 m and at Lachung in Sikkim, India, at 2800 m, both flowering in May, illustrate its preference for cool, humid, partly shaded montane habitats in spring.

It is a soft, herbaceous perennial, distinct among Himalayan Androsace in its conspicuously geranium-like foliage. The leaves are long-petiolate with orbicular to reniform, palmately lobed and toothed blades, forming a loose basal rosette or tuft rather than the tight cushion of many congeners. From the rosette arise slender, hairy scapes bearing an umbel of several small flowers subtended by leafy bracts. Each flower has a campanulate calyx and a salver-shaped white to pale pink corolla with five spreading lobes and a small yellow eye at the constricted throat. The fruit is a small, few- to several-seeded globose capsule.

Androsace is a large genus of Primulaceae centred on the mountains of central Asia, and A. geranifolia represents the broad-leaved, woodland-dwelling rather than cushion-forming element of the genus, allied to A. sarmentosa and A. rotundifolia. Its dissected foliage reflects adaptation to shaded forest understorey rather than the exposed screes typical of the section. As a narrowly distributed, seldom-collected Himalayan endemic, its conservation status remains formally unassessed and warrants further field documentation.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith & Lowe revision of Androsace, Flora of British India

Primulaceae

Androsace globifera

by G & P Jürgens

Duby

BhutanPG2011 669 scaled
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Thitha-Tso, 4300m July
Sikkim2004 163 G276
Sikkim/India Singalila 4100m May
Nepal 99 138 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3800m, June

Description

Androsace globifera is a high-alpine cushion-forming perennial distributed along the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (103 occurrences) from Nepal, India, Bhutan and adjacent Tibetan China. It occupies open, often wind-exposed alpine turf, gravel slopes, moraine margins and the rocky surrounds of glacial tarns, typically between 3800 and 4500 m. The documented gatherings illustrate this range well: dense colonies were found beside Thitha-Tso on the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail in Bhutan at 4300 m in July, on the Singalila ridge of Sikkim at 4100 m in May, and south of Rara Lake in West Nepal at 3800 m in June, flowering as the snow recedes.

The plant forms compact, hemispherical cushions or low mats built from numerous crowded, columnar shoots clothed in persistent, imbricate, withered leaf-remains. The leaves are small, sessile, oblong to spathulate, and gathered into dense terminal rosettes, their margins ciliate with simple and branched hairs. Solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate flowers nestle among the leaves; the calyx is campanulate and lobed to about the middle, and the rotate corolla is white to pink with a yellow throat, the five obovate lobes spreading from a short tube. The fruit is a small globose capsule that splits by five valves to release angular seeds.

A member of the cushion-forming androsaces, the species is diagnosed by its globular, tightly packed habit and short-tubed flowers. Ecologically it is a pioneer of frost-disturbed, well-drained substrates, the cushion architecture buffering temperature extremes and trapping wind-blown detritus. Though locally frequent and not currently threatened, such narrowly stenothermic alpines are sensitive to warming and shifting snow regimes.

Author: Duby · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 15, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Smith & Lowe Androsace monograph (Genus Androsace)

Primulaceae

Androsace hookeriana

by GP Jürgens

Klatt

Sikkim2011 54
Sikkim Vista-valley 3800m, June
BhutanPG2011 784 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3800m June
Bh09 175 G200
Bhutan Labana, 4000m June

Description

Androsace hookeriana is an eastern Himalayan rock-jasmine recorded in GBIF from Nepal, China, Bhutan and India across 120 occurrences. It grows in moist alpine meadows, grassy slopes, seepage flushes and among rocks, generally between 3500 and 4300 m. The cited collections span Sikkim's Vista valley at about 3800 m, Chele-La in Bhutan at 3800 m, and Labana in Bhutan at 4000 m, all flowering in June, indicating an early-summer alpine species that exploits damp, freshly snow-freed turf. Named for the botanist J. D. Hooker, it is a characteristic component of high eastern Himalayan herbfields.

It is a small rosette-forming perennial, the basal leaves spathulate to oblanceolate, narrowed to the base, with a sparse to dense covering of fine hairs. From the rosette rises a slender, hairy scape a few centimetres to about 15 cm tall, bearing a terminal umbel of several flowers subtended by an involucre of narrow bracts; the pedicels are hairy. Each flower has a campanulate, hairy calyx divided to about the middle and a salverform white to pale pink corolla with a yellow or pinkish eye and five rounded lobes. The fruit is a small, valvate capsule containing a few angular seeds.

As a member of Androsace (Primulaceae), the species belongs to a genus of predominantly arctic-alpine herbs richly diversified across the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau. Its scapose, umbellate habit aligns it with the meadow-dwelling rosette species rather than the tight cushion-formers of higher scree. Pollination is by small dipterans and other insects drawn to the eye-ring, and seeds are dispersed by gravity and wind. It is locally frequent and of no recognised conservation concern.

Author: Klatt · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe Monograph of Androsace

Primulaceae

Androsace jacquemontii var. robusta 

by G & P Jürgens

(R.Knuth) Govaerts

Nepal 99 674 ergebnis
West-Nepal, Kagmara-La 4800m, July
Nepal 99 673 2 ergebnis
West-Nepal, Kagmara-La 4800m, July

Description

Androsace jacquemontii var. robusta is a high-alpine cushion plant of the western and central Himalaya and the Tibetan borderlands, recorded from China, India, Nepal and Pakistan among its roughly 212 documented occurrences. It is a denizen of the upper alpine zone, growing on stony slopes, fine moraine, gravelly flats and rock crevices where drainage is sharp and exposure severe. The photographed population at the Kagmara-La in West Nepal, at about 4800 m and flowering in July, is characteristic of its elevational ceiling, where the brief snow-free season concentrates flowering into the early summer weeks following snowmelt.

The plant forms dense, compact cushions or low mats built from numerous crowded rosettes of small, imbricate, linear to oblanceolate leaves, often somewhat fleshy and ciliate at the margins, an adaptation conserving heat and moisture in the windswept environment. From the rosettes arise short scapes bearing solitary flowers or small few-flowered umbels; each flower has a five-lobed campanulate calyx and a salverform corolla with a constricted throat marked by a yellow or pinkish eye, the spreading lobes usually pink to lilac or white. The fruit is a small, few-seeded capsule dehiscing by valves at the apex, the var. robusta distinguished by its more vigorous, larger habit relative to typical A. jacquemontii.

Androsace is the classic genus of Himalayan rock-jasmines within Primulaceae, and the cushion-forming alpines exemplify convergent adaptation to cold, high-radiation environments shared with Saxifraga and Arenaria. The recombination of this taxon, originally a Knuth name, by Govaerts reflects ongoing nomenclatural refinement of the infraspecific entities. Cushion plants of this kind are long-lived, slow-growing and act as nurse plants facilitating other seedlings; while not individually threatened given their remote habitat, they are recognised as sensitive sentinels of warming-driven change in high-mountain vegetation.

Author: (R.Knuth) Govaerts · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe's monograph of Androsace (Primulaceae)