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

Millettia pachycarpa

by G & P Jürgens

Benth.

Sikkim 2006 269 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Lingza 1300m, May

Description

Millettia pachycarpa is a robust woody climber of the eastern Himalaya and South-East Asia, ranging from Nepal, Bhutan and north-east India through Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam to southern China and Taiwan. GBIF holds around 2140 occurrences across this subtropical to warm-temperate range. It grows in broad-leaved forest, forest margins, ravines and along streams, scrambling over trees at low to middle elevations. The plant from Lingza in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal at 1300 m in May represents a typical eastern Himalayan population, flowering in spring before the monsoon.

It is a large, woody, deciduous liana with stout twining stems. Its leaves are alternate and imparipinnate, with numerous opposite, oblong to oblong-lanceolate leaflets that are dark green and somewhat leathery, glabrescent above and finely appressed-hairy beneath. The flowers are borne in long, dense, pendulous axillary racemes or panicles, the corolla papilionaceous and lilac to purplish-pink, the standard broad and often silky-hairy outside enclosing the wing and keel petals; the stamens are diadelphous and the ovary superior. The fruit is a large, thick, woody pod (the epithet pachycarpa meaning thick-fruited), pendulous and often tuberculate, indehiscent or tardily so, with one to several large hard seeds.

Millettia belongs to tribe Millettieae of the papilionoid Fabaceae, a group much revised in recent decades with several Asian species transferred to allied genera; M. pachycarpa is retained in Millettia in current treatments. The plant is notable for its high content of rotenoids and isoflavonoids: the seeds and roots have long been used as fish poison and insecticide across its range, and it is an important source of rotenone-type compounds. Widespread and frequent in eastern Himalayan forests, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: Benth. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 10, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Geesink revision of Millettieae

Fabaceae

Mimosa rubicaulis subsp. himalayana

by G & P Jürgens

(Gamble) Ohashi

Bhutan2012 723
Bhutan Galephu 400m, October

Description

Mimosa rubicaulis subsp. himalayana is a scrambling, prickly shrub of the lower Himalayan foothills and adjacent plains, recorded from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Bhutan, with additional scattered records (IN, PK, NP, AF, BT, MM, JP, MU) totalling around 219 occurrences. It favours warm, seasonally dry sites: open scrub, forest margins, hedgerows, ravines and disturbed roadside thickets in the subtropical zone, generally below about 1500 m. The plant photographed at Galephu in southern Bhutan at 400 m in October grew in the hot, humid duar foothills, where its straggling, armed branches form dense, often impenetrable tangles among other secondary vegetation following the monsoon.

It is a much-branched shrub or subscandent woody climber with terete, reddish stems bearing scattered, recurved prickles. The leaves are bipinnate, with several pairs of pinnae each carrying numerous small, oblong-linear, asymmetric leaflets, the rachis prickly and often glandular. The flowers are tiny and crowded into globose or shortly cylindrical heads, pink to pale purple, each flower with numerous long, exserted stamens giving the heads a fluffy appearance. The fruit is a flat, oblong, jointed pod (a craspedium) that breaks transversely into one-seeded segments at maturity, the persistent margins remaining as an empty frame.

Mimosa belongs to the mimosoid clade of the Fabaceae (subfamily Caesalpinioideae in current circumscription), characterised by actinomorphic flowers with valvate petals and free stamens. Subsp. himalayana, raised from M. rubicaulis, represents the montane-fringe Himalayan element of a widespread Asian species. The recurved prickles and rapid clonal spread make it an effective coloniser of degraded land, and locally it is used as a living hedge and for fuel. It is not of conservation concern, being common and weedy across its broad subtropical range.

Author: (Gamble) Ohashi · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Mimosoid legumes monograph (Barneby, Sensitivae Censitae)

Nyctaginaceae

Mirabilis jalapa

by G & P Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2012 425
Bhutan Wangdi 2300m, June

Description

Mirabilis jalapa, the four-o'clock flower or marvel-of-Peru, is native to tropical America but is now cultivated and naturalised across virtually the entire warm and temperate world; GBIF's very large total of around 48896 records spans France, Spain, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Brazil, China, Japan, South Africa, India and many other countries, reflecting its ubiquity as an ornamental and garden escape. It thrives in disturbed, sunny habitats, including gardens, roadsides, walls, waste ground and village margins, and readily persists around human settlements. The plant photographed at Wangdi (Wangdue) in Bhutan at about 2300 m in June represents one such cultivated and locally escaping occurrence in the Himalayan mid-hills, where it flowers freely through the warm months.

It is a bushy perennial herb arising from a thick, tuberous root, with erect, swollen-noded, dichotomously branched stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate, acuminate and entire, with a deep green blade. The flowers, which characteristically open in the late afternoon and remain open overnight (hence the vernacular name), are borne in terminal clusters; each consists of a brightly coloured, funnel-shaped, petaloid perianth (lacking true petals) subtended by a calyx-like involucre of bracts. The perianth ranges through magenta, red, yellow, white and variegated forms, often on the same plant. The fruit is a hard, ribbed, blackish achene (anthocarp) enclosed in the persistent perianth base.

As a member of the Nyctaginaceae, M. jalapa exhibits classic vespertine, often fragrant flowers adapted to pollination by long-tongued moths and hawkmoths, while it is also self-compatible. The genus is celebrated in genetics as the organism in which Carl Correns demonstrated cytoplasmic (extranuclear) inheritance through variegated leaf colour. Robust, self-seeding and tuberous, the species is highly persistent in cultivation and is not of conservation concern; rather, it is a minor weed of warm regions.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Bittrich & Kühn Nyctaginaceae (Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)

Malvaceae

Modiola caroliniana

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) G.Don

Nepal 99 876 ergebnis
Nepal Murwa 3400m, July

Description

Modiola caroliniana is a pantropical and warm-temperate weed of American origin, now naturalized on every continent. GBIF documents over 23,700 occurrences, with the densest concentrations in the southeastern United States, southern South America, Australia, and New Zealand. While the species typically colonises disturbed lawns, roadsides, and cultivated land at low to moderate elevations, the present collection from Murwa in Nepal at 3,400 m represents a remarkably high-altitude record. In the Himalayan region it is known primarily as a casual introduction, exploiting anthropogenic disturbance along trade routes and settlement margins.
Modiola caroliniana is a prostrate to decumbent perennial herb with slender, creeping stems that root at the nodes, forming dense mats. Stems are sparsely to moderately stellate-pubescent. Leaves are alternate, palmately 5–7-lobed, 2–5 cm in diameter, with crenate margins; stipules are ovate, scarious. Flowers are solitary and axillary, small (8–12 mm across), with five salmon-pink to orange-red petals, each narrowly obovate and slightly emarginate. The staminal column is characteristic of Malvaceae. The fruit is a schizocarp, 6–8 mm in diameter, composed of 15–22 mericarps arranged in a disc; each mericarp bears two divergent, spine-like awns at the apex and contains a single reniform seed. The barbed mericarps facilitate epizoochorous dispersal.
Modiola is a monotypic genus, distinguished from related genera such as Malva and Sida by its spiny mericarps and prostrate, stoloniferous habit. Its occurrence at 3,400 m in western Nepal is biogeographically noteworthy, well above its typical altitudinal range of sea level to 1,500 m. This high-elevation record likely reflects transport along the heavily trafficked trails connecting lowland Nepal with trans-Himalayan passes. The species' ability to establish at such altitudes hints at a broader climatic tolerance than generally assumed and warrants monitoring as a potential indicator of upward weed migration under changing climate conditions.

Author: (L.) G.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 12, Fryxell: The Natural History of the Cotton Tribe (1979), Press et al.: Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal (2000)

Ericaceae

Monotropa hypopitys

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bh09 307 G504
Bhutan Yetong-La, 3050m June
Nepal 99 882 ergebnis
West-Nepal Suli-Khola 3000m, July

Description

Monotropa hypopitys, the yellow bird's-nest, is a circumboreal mycoheterotroph of remarkably broad distribution, with GBIF amassing over 56,000 occurrences spanning North America, Europe and temperate Asia, including the United States, France, Canada, Russia, Germany, Scandinavia and Japan. It grows in the deep shade and leaf litter of coniferous and broadleaved forests, lacking chlorophyll and obtaining its carbon indirectly from surrounding trees via shared ectomycorrhizal fungi. The Himalayan records from Yetong-La in Bhutan at about 3050 m in June and Suli-Khola in western Nepal near 3000 m in July document its occurrence in shaded temperate fir, oak and rhododendron forest along the southern margin of its vast range. Here gbif_status is SYNONYM, with Monotropa hypopitys taken as the accepted name (often referred to Hypopitys monotropa).

The entire plant is a waxy, fleshy herb of pale yellow, ivory or pinkish-brown colour, wholly devoid of green pigment. The simple, unbranched stem is clothed in scale-like, alternate, bract-form leaves in place of true foliage. At anthesis the stem nods at the apex, bearing a short, secund, few-flowered raceme of pendent, urn-shaped to campanulate flowers; the lateral flowers are usually 4-merous and the terminal 5-merous, with free or loosely cohering petals and eight to ten stamens. After pollination the inflorescence becomes erect, the ovary maturing into an ovoid capsule releasing enormous numbers of minute, dust-like seeds.

Long placed in its own family Monotropaceae, M. hypopitys is now firmly embedded within Ericaceae subfamily Monotropoideae, a lineage of obligate mycoheterotrophs whose nutrition depends entirely on a tripartite plant-fungus-tree relationship. Its dust seeds require fungal infection to germinate, tying its distribution closely to suitable mycorrhizal hosts. Despite its enormous global range it is inconspicuous and of least concern overall, though sensitive to forest clearance that severs its underground fungal connections.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora Europaea, Flora of Bhutan, Wallace monograph of Monotropoideae

Caprifoliaceae

Morina longifolia

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Sikkim2003 372 G521
Sikkim Tista valley 3500m August
Nepal 99 84 ergebnis
West-Nepal Bhulbhule 3200m, June
Garw 2005 36 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Valley of flowers 3100m, September

Description

Morina longifolia, the Himalayan whorlflower, is native to the Himalaya across Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan, with naturalised and cultivated records in Europe and North America (Norway, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the United States) reflected among its roughly 125 GBIF occurrences. It grows on open alpine and subalpine slopes, in stony meadows, grassy clearings and among low scrub on well-drained soils above the forest. The cited localities, the Tista valley in Sikkim at 3500 m in August, Bhulbhule in western Nepal at 3200 m in June, and the Valley of Flowers in Garhwal at 3100 m in September, span its range of roughly 3000-4000 m, where it flowers through the summer monsoon.

It is a robust, erect perennial herb forming a basal rosette of long, narrow, linear-lanceolate leaves whose margins are conspicuously spiny-toothed, giving a thistle-like appearance, the whole plant aromatic when crushed. The flowering stem rises stoutly and bears the flowers in well-separated, spiny-bracted whorls (verticillasters) up the upper axis. Each flower has a tubular, curved, two-lipped corolla that opens white and ages through pink to deep crimson, so flowers of several colours appear together in one whorl. Two stamens are fertile, the slender style is exserted, and the inferior ovary develops into a small one-seeded achene enclosed within the persistent involucel.

The genus Morina, with its spiny leaves and whorled bicoloured flowers, has been placed variously in its own family Morinaceae or within Dipsacaceae, and is treated by current systems within an enlarged Caprifoliaceae; molecular work confirms its position near the teasels and valerians in the Dipsacales. The long-tubed flowers are pollinated by long-tongued insects, and the species is widely grown as an ornamental, accounting for its scattered occurrences far beyond its native range.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Bhutan, Cannon revision of Morina, Bell Dipsacales phylogeny

Caprifoliaceae

Morina nepalensis

by G & P Jürgens

D. Don

Nepal 99 277 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalomura 3900m, June
Nepal 99 276 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalomura 3900m, June
BhutanPG2011 472
BhutanPG2011 168 scaled
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Warrtlang-La, 4450m June

Description

Morina nepalensis is a high-mountain perennial of the Sino-Himalayan region, ranging through China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Pakistan, with GBIF recording 239 occurrences across this arc. It inhabits open alpine pastures, grassy slopes, rocky meadows and shrubby hollows above the treeline, typically between about 3000 and 4500 m. The illustrated plants were photographed in West Nepal at Kalomura at 3900 m and in Bhutan on the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail near Warrtlang-La at 4450 m, both in June, exemplifying the subalpine to alpine turf where the species is most frequent during the early summer flush.

The plant forms a stout rosette from a thick taproot, the basal leaves narrowly oblong to lanceolate, sessile or amplexicaul and conspicuously armed along the margins with stiff spinose teeth. The flowering stem is erect, terminating in interrupted whorls of flowers subtended by spiny pinnatifid bracts. Each flower sits within a tubular involucel and a two-lipped calyx; the corolla is gamopetalous, curved and white to pink, often deepening to rose with age, with a slender tube and five spreading lobes. There are two fertile stamens and a single inferior ovary maturing into an achene enclosed by the persistent involucel.

Long placed in the segregate family Morinaceae, the genus Morina is now subsumed within an expanded Caprifoliaceae, consistent with the input family. POWO and GBIF treat M. nepalensis as the accepted name. The colour change of the corolla after pollination is a notable floral signal, and the species contributes to the showy alpine herbfields grazed by Himalayan livestock.

Author: D. Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Revision of Morinaceae (Dipsacales monograph)

Caprifoliaceae

Morina polyphylla

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Nepal 99 354 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 3800m, June
Nepal 99 355 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 3800m, June
Sikkim2003 371 P520
Sikkim Lachen Tista valley 3600m August

Description

Morina polyphylla is a Himalayan high-altitude herb recorded from Nepal, northern India and Bhutan, with roughly 54 documented occurrences. It inhabits open subalpine to alpine meadows, rocky slopes and grazed pasture, generally between about 3300 and 4200 m. The collections illustrated here, from Kalmura in West Nepal at 3800 m in June and from the Tista valley above Lachen in Sikkim at 3600 m in August, span the early and late monsoon flowering periods and typify its preference for moist, well-drained turf and stony ground in full sun above the treeline.

It is a stout perennial forming a basal rosette of numerous narrowly oblong to lanceolate leaves whose margins are pinnately lobed and armed with stiff spinescent teeth, the texture rigid and the surfaces often shining. The erect flowering stem bears whorls of flowers subtended by spiny floral bracts arranged in interrupted verticillasters. Each flower has a tubular, oblique calyx and a slender-tubed, curved corolla that is two-lipped, typically pale to deep pink or whitish, the long tube adapted to long-tongued pollinators. There are usually two fertile stamens; the inferior ovary ripens into a single-seeded achene enclosed by the persistent involucel.

GBIF treats the name as a synonym, with Morina polyphylla retained as the accepted name; the species belongs to the Morinoideae, now placed within an expanded Caprifoliaceae. Its spiny, thistle-like architecture deters grazing in heavily pastured alpine zones, and the protandrous, long-tubed flowers favour cross-pollination by bumblebees and lepidopterans. The species remains widespread across its montane range with no recognised conservation threat.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China Vol. 19, A Taxonomic Revision of the Morinaceae

Moraceae

Morus indica

by GP Jürgens

L.

Nepal 97 362 P710
Nepal Arun-Valley 1700m May

Description

Morus indica L. is a deciduous tree or shrub of the mulberry family, widely distributed across temperate and subtropical Asia and extensively cultivated. GBIF documents over 14,000 records from China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand, together with introductions in Europe and the Americas, reflecting its long history of cultivation for sericulture and fruit. In the Himalaya it occurs in subtropical and lower temperate forest, along valley sides, field margins and roadsides; the photographed plant is from Nepal, the Arun Valley, at 1,700 m in May, a typical mid-elevation montane setting.

The plant is a small to medium tree with grey, fissured bark and milky latex. The leaves are alternate, ovate, often unequally cordate at the base, with a serrate or dentate margin and an acuminate apex; juvenile and coppice leaves are frequently variously lobed, a common feature of the genus. The plant is dioecious or monoecious, the inconspicuous unisexual flowers borne in short, dense, pendent axillary catkins (spikes); staminate flowers have four tepals and four stamens, pistillate flowers a superior ovary with a bifid stigma. The fruit is a fleshy sorosis (multiple fruit) formed from the accrescent perianths, ripening from greenish through red to dark purple-black and edible.

The taxonomy of Asian Morus is unsettled, with M. indica often treated as part of the variable M. alba complex and subject to differing circumscriptions. The species is of major economic importance as the principal food plant of the silkworm and as a fruit and fodder tree, and is consequently both wild and widely naturalised; it is not of conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Berg: Moraceae (Flora Malesiana)

Lamiaceae

Mosla dianthera 

by GP Jürgens

(Buch.-Ham. ex Roxb.) Maxim.

Bhutan2015 32
Bhutan Dochu-La 2800m, October
Bhutan2015 33
Bhutan Dochu-La 2800m, October

Description

Mosla dianthera is a widespread annual mint of monsoonal Asia, ranging from the Himalaya (Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar) across China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Russian Far East south into mainland and insular Southeast Asia; with over 7000 GBIF occurrences it is among the most frequently recorded species of its genus. It grows in disturbed and seasonally moist ground, including roadsides, field margins, fallow land, streambanks and open grassy slopes from the lowlands into the temperate hills, as recorded at Dochu-La in Bhutan at 2800 m. As an autumn-flowering annual it completes its cycle on the late monsoon moisture, flowering and fruiting in October.

It is a slender, erect, aromatic annual herb with the quadrangular stems typical of the Lamiaceae, often much branched and sparsely hairy. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, serrate along the margin and gland-dotted, releasing a pungent scent when crushed. The flowers are borne in lax, terminal and axillary racemes; each two-lipped corolla is small, pale pink to purplish, with a notched upper lip and a three-lobed lower lip. Diagnostic for Mosla are the two fertile stamens (the epithet "dianthera" referring to the two anthers) and the reticulately pitted nutlets. The fruit comprises four small, dry, one-seeded nutlets enclosed in the persistent, gland-dotted calyx.

Mosla is a small Asian genus segregated from Orthodon and allied to Perilla and Elsholtzia within the subfamily Nepetoideae, characterised by the reduction to two stamens and by aromatic terpene-rich foliage. The essential oils of M. dianthera are used in traditional medicine, and the plant is a minor nectar source for bees and other insects. Being a ruderal, broadly tolerant annual of vast geographic range, it is of least conservation concern and is sometimes weedy. (The associated WordPress link erroneously references Pogostemon benghalensis; the taxon treated here is Mosla dianthera.)

Author: (Buch.-Ham. ex Roxb.) Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Li & Hedge's treatment of the Lamiaceae