Tag:

Sikkim

Flowers of Sikkim — 350 species from the Sikkim Himalaya in northeast India, a compact yet botanically extraordinary region that climbs from subtropical valleys to the alpine zone beneath Kangchenjunga. Sikkim is a classic centre of Himalayan plant diversity, celebrated for its rhododendrons, primulas, orchids and gentians. Each entry provides a botanical description, distribution, habitat and flowering season with the original field photograph.

Primulaceae

Androsace strigillosa

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Sikkim2011 59
Sikkim Vista-valley 3800m, June

Description

Androsace strigillosa is a Himalayan rock-jasmine recorded in GBIF from Nepal, China, India and Bhutan across 294 occurrences. It is a plant of open subalpine and alpine slopes, meadows, forest clearings and rocky banks, generally between 3000 and 4200 m. The photographed individual was found in Sikkim's Vista valley at about 3800 m in June, when the early summer brings flowering on moist, well-drained turf shortly after snow-melt. Within the genus it is one of the taller, more robust species, favouring herb-rich grassland rather than extreme scree.

It is a rosette-forming perennial with a basal cluster of oblong-lanceolate to spathulate leaves narrowed to a winged base, the lamina toothed toward the apex and clothed, as the epithet implies, in a strigillose (short, stiff, appressed-bristly) indumentum. From the rosette arises a stout, hairy scape 10-30 cm tall terminating in an umbel of numerous flowers subtended by an involucre of bracts. Each flower has a campanulate, hairy calyx and a salverform pink to rose-purple corolla with a constricted, often yellow-eyed throat and five spreading lobes. The fruit is a small, few- to several-seeded globose capsule dehiscing by valves.

Androsace (Primulaceae) is a large genus of the northern temperate and arctic-alpine zones, well represented in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, where cushion and rosette forms dominate. As a comparatively large-leaved, scapose species, A. strigillosa illustrates the meadow-dwelling end of the genus's ecological range. Pollination is by small insects attracted to the contrasting eye-ring, and seeds are gravity- and wind-dispersed. It is locally common and of no conservation concern.

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

Ranunculaceae

Anemonastrum trullifolium

by GP Jürgens

(Hook.f. & Thomson) Mosyakin

Sikkim2011 131
Sikkim Tanghu 4000m, June
Sikkim2011 129
Sikkim Tanghu 4000m, June
Bhutan2014 985 scaled
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May
Bhutan2014 983
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May
Nepal 97 210 P428
Nepal Thudam 3690m April

Description

Anemonastrum trullifolium is a Himalayan alpine herb ranging through China, India, Nepal and Bhutan, with 317 occurrences in GBIF (additional records from Britain, Myanmar, Norway and Sweden reflect cultivated or determinavit material). It grows in alpine meadows, open slopes and the margins of dwarf-shrub heath, typically between 3500 and 4500 m. Field collections span Sikkim's Tanghu at about 4000 m in June, Chele-La in Bhutan at 4000 m in May, and Thudam in Nepal at 3690 m in April, indicating an early-season flowerer that tracks receding snow on moist subalpine to alpine turf.

The plant is a rhizomatous perennial 10-30 cm tall, forming a tuft from a short, often hairy rootstock. The long-petiolate basal leaves have a trullate (trowel-shaped) to rhombic-ovate lamina, often three-lobed or coarsely toothed and silky-pilose beneath, the epithet trullifolium referring to this leaf outline. The scape bears an involucre of leaf-like bracts subtending a few-flowered umbel; the flowers lack true petals, the showy perianth comprising 5-6 white to bluish, sometimes externally tinged tepals, surrounding numerous stamens and a head of carpels. The fruiting head is a cluster of flattened, glabrous to pubescent achenes with a short hooked beak.

The species was transferred from Anemone to the segregate genus Anemonastrum following molecular phylogenetic studies that resolved the windflowers into several lineages; the basionym Anemone trullifolia (under which it is widely listed) reflects this history. Pollination is by generalist alpine insects, and the achenes are wind- and gravity-dispersed. Locally common across its range, it has no specific conservation concern.

Author: (Hook.f. & Thomson) Mosyakin · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Mosyakin revision of Anemonastrum

Ranunculaceae

Anemonoides griffithii

by G & P Jürgens

(Hook. & Thomson) Holub

Sikkim 2006 438 ergebnis
Sikkim 2006 351 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Tamrong 2650m, May
Bhutan2014 325 scaled
Bhutan Tumching-La 2700m, May
Bhutan2014 330 scaled
Bhutan Tumching-La 2700m, May

Description

Anemonoides griffithii is a slender, woodland-floor perennial of the temperate eastern Himalaya, distributed through Sikkim, the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, Bhutan and adjacent southern Tibet (Xizang); GBIF, which records the species under the name Anemonoides griffithii, holds only a sparse occurrence dataset (a single georeferenced point from China), reflecting how thinly this shade-dwelling herb is documented despite a genuinely wider range. It favours the cool, humus-rich understorey of mixed conifer and broad-leaved forest and damp shrubberies, where it flowers in late spring as the canopy leafs out. The accompanying images, gathered at Tamrong (2650 m) in West Bengal and at the Tumching-La pass (2700 m) in Bhutan, both in May, place the plant squarely in its characteristic mid-montane band between roughly 2500 and 3500 m, in the moist, mossy conditions typical of the monsoon-fed Himalayan flank.

The plant arises from a short, creeping rhizome and is a delicate herb seldom exceeding 15-25 cm. The basal leaves are long-petiolate and ternately to palmately divided, with deeply incised, toothed segments and a thin, soft texture. The flowering stem bears a whorl of three stalked involucral leaves resembling reduced basal leaves, above which is borne a solitary terminal flower. There are no true petals; the showy perianth consists of five to several petaloid sepals, white often flushed pink or purple beneath, surrounding numerous stamens and a head of carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of small, ovoid, pubescent achenes tipped by a short style, dispersed as the involucre withers.

The species belongs to Anemonoides, a segregate genus split from the broadly circumscribed Anemone to accommodate the rhizomatous, woodland anemones of the A. nemorosa alliance, and many references still treat it under Anemone griffithii. Within the Himalaya it is one of several closely allied spring-flowering forest anemones, distinguished by leaf dissection and perianth colour. As a low-growing, monsoon-region understorey herb it has not been formally assessed for conservation status, but its dependence on intact temperate forest makes it locally sensitive to logging and grazing pressure across its restricted eastern-Himalayan range.

Author: (Hook. & Thomson) Holub · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Nepal, Tamura's Ranunculaceae treatment in The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants

Apiaceae

Angelica cyclocarpa

by GP Jürgens

(C.Norman) M.Hiroe
Sikkim2003 398 P560
Sikkim Zemu Valley 3450m, August
Sikkim2003 399 P561
Sikkim Zemu Valley 3450m August

Description

Angelica cyclocarpa is a Himalayan umbellifer distributed along the central and eastern ranges from Pakistan and the Indian Himalaya through Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, GBIF documenting 29 occurrences across Nepal, Bhutan, India and Pakistan (NP, BT, IN, PK). It is a plant of moist subalpine and lower alpine habitats, occurring in tall-herb meadows, open forest margins, streamsides and damp grassy slopes generally between about 3000 and 4000 m. The photographed plants from the Zemu Valley in Sikkim at 3450 m in August capture its flowering during the late monsoon, when the lush, herb-rich vegetation of these moist eastern valleys reaches its peak development.

It is a robust, erect, biennial to perennial herb arising from a stout aromatic root, the hollow, ridged stems often purplish below. The large leaves are several-times pinnate or ternate-pinnate with sharply toothed ovate to lanceolate leaflets, the petiole bases expanded into conspicuous inflated sheaths clasping the stem. The white flowers are borne in large compound umbels with numerous rays; petals are obovate with an inflexed apex. The fruit is a dorsally compressed schizocarp with prominent winged lateral ribs and slender dorsal ribs, the rounded, broadly winged outline giving the species its epithet cyclocarpa.

A member of Angelica (Apiaceae, subfamily Apioideae), the species belongs to a complex of Sino-Himalayan tall umbellifers whose generic limits relative to Pleurospermum and allied genera have been repeatedly revised. The combination by M. Hiroe reflects this taxonomic mobility. Its flat-topped white umbels attract a broad spectrum of generalist insect pollinators, and the aromatic, resinous tissues typical of the genus are present. Restricted to remote high-elevation meadows, it is not regarded as threatened.

Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Umbelliferae of British India (C.B. Clarke)

Orchideaceae

Anthogonium gracile

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bhutan2012 473
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September
Bhutan2012 474
Bhutan Wangdi 2500m, September

Description

Anthogonium gracile is a terrestrial orchid and the sole species in the monotypic genus Anthogonium. It is distributed from Nepal through northeast India (Sikkim, Darjeeling, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh), Bhutan, and Myanmar into Thailand, Indochina, and southwest China (Yunnan, Guangxi). The species occurs in open, grassy hillsides, pine forests, and degraded forest margins at elevations of 1,000–3,000 m, often in seasonally moist grassland.

The plant produces slender, reed-like stems 30–80 cm tall from underground tubers, with narrow, plicate, grass-like leaves arranged along the upper portion of the stem. The inflorescence is a lax, terminal raceme bearing 5–15 flowers that open successively. Flowers are 3–4 cm across, typically rose-pink to magenta, with a broad, spreading lip that is darker pink with a yellow callus of parallel lamellae. The column is slender and gently curved. Flowering in the Himalayas occurs from August to October.

Anthogonium gracile is taxonomically isolated within the Orchidaceae, though molecular phylogenetic analyses place it close to Calanthe and Phaius. Its preference for open, fire-maintained habitats suggests adaptation to seasonal burning regimes characteristic of Himalayan montane grasslands.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Pearce & Cribb: The Orchids of Bhutan (2002)

Brassicaceae

Aphragmus serpens

by GP Jürgens

(W.W.Sm.) Al-Shehbaz & Warwick

Sikkim2003 104 P142
Sikkim below Dzongri 3850m, August

Description

Aphragmus serpens is a diminutive alpine crucifer of the eastern and central Himalaya, recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan and China, with some 74 georeferenced occurrences indicating a scattered but recurrent presence across the high ranges. It is a plant of cold, open alpine habitats — gravelly and stony slopes, moraine debris, rock ledges and the margins of snow-melt seepages — typically well above treeline. The illustrated material from below Dzongri in Sikkim, at about 3850 m and photographed in August, is representative of the late-summer flowering of this species in the moist eastern Himalayan alpine zone.

The plant is a small, low-growing perennial with a slender, often creeping or trailing habit reflected in the epithet serpens. It arises from a thin rootstock and forms loose tufts or mats of mostly basal leaves; these are small, entire to slightly toothed, narrowed to a petiole, and more or less glabrous to sparsely hairy. The inflorescence is a short, few-flowered raceme; the flowers are typically cruciform with four small petals, usually white to pale lilac or pinkish, four sepals and the characteristic tetradynamous androecium of six stamens. The fruit is a short, oblong to ovoid silicula containing few seeds, the slender style persisting at the apex.

The genus Aphragmus comprises a small group of high-alpine Asian crucifers whose generic limits and species circumscriptions have been substantially revised, this combination being attributed to Al-Shehbaz & Warwick in the course of modern molecular and morphological reassessment of the Brassicaceae. As a specialist of severe high-altitude environments, A. serpens is intimately tied to short, cool growing seasons and reliable snow-melt moisture, and its restricted alpine niche makes it potentially sensitive to climatic warming, though its wide if sparse distribution suggests it is not at present under acute threat.

Author: (W.W.Sm.) Al-Shehbaz & Warwick · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Brassicaceae), Flora of Bhutan, Al-Shehbaz: monographic revisions of Himalayan Brassicaceae

Caryophyllaceae

Arenaria ciliolata

by GP Jürgens

Edgew. & Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 289 P400
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4250m August

Description

Arenaria ciliolata is a small alpine sandwort of the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, Bhutan, India and China, with an additional outlying datum (gbif_countries: NP, BT, IN, CN, IS) and about 134 GBIF occurrences. It grows on open alpine turf, gravelly and stony slopes, rock crevices and screes well above the treeline, where it forms low cushions or mats in the cold, well-drained habitats typical of the genus. The illustrated material was collected near Saniti Lake in Sikkim at about 4250 m in August, a high-alpine setting where late-summer flowering follows snowmelt. In GBIF the name carries gbif_status SYNONYM, with Arenaria ciliolata given as the accepted name.

The plant is a tufted to mat-forming perennial arising from a branched woody base, with short, densely leafy stems. The leaves are small, opposite, sessile, narrow and rigid, often pungent-tipped and conspicuously ciliate on the margins, the feature evoked by the epithet. The flowers are solitary or few in lax cymes, with five free, white petals exceeding the five lanceolate, often ciliate-margined sepals; the stamens are typically ten and the styles three. The fruit is a capsule opening by valves or teeth at the apex to shed numerous small seeds.

Arenaria is a large, predominantly Northern Hemisphere genus of the pink family with a marked centre of diversity in the mountains of Asia, and the cushion-forming alpine species such as A. ciliolata have figured in repeated taxonomic and phylogenetic reassessments that have realigned segregates within tribe Arenarieae, accounting for the synonymy noted in GBIF. Adapted to harsh high-mountain conditions, the species is widespread across the Himalayan alpine zone and is of no conservation concern.

Author: Edgew. & Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Caryophyllaceae account in The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants

Caryophyllaceae

Arenaria glanduligera

by GP Jürgens

Edgew.

Sikkim2003 305 G431
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4250m, August
Sikkim2003 306 G432
Sikkim Saniti-Lake 4250m, August
Nepal 99 789 ergebnis
West-Nepal Baga-La-Phedi 4400m, July

Description

Arenaria glanduligera is a cushion- or mat-forming sandwort of the high Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (about 240 occurrences) from Nepal, China, India and Bhutan. It is a true alpine of the upper alpine and subnival zones, growing on open stony slopes, gravelly flats, moraine and exposed ridges where snow lies late and the growing season is short. The photographed plants came from Sikkim near Saniti Lake at about 4250 m in August and from West Nepal at Baga-La-Phedi at around 4400 m in July, both well above the timberline and typical of its range, which extends to over 4500 m in the wettest, most exposed habitats of the inner ranges.

The plant is a low, densely tufted perennial forming compact mats from a branched, woody base. The stems are short, crowded and glandular-hairy, the indumentum giving rise to the epithet glanduligera. The leaves are opposite, small, narrowly lanceolate to subulate, acute and somewhat rigid, often ciliate on the margins. The flowers are solitary or few at the stem tips; each has five free, lanceolate sepals and five white, entire, obovate petals that exceed the sepals, with ten stamens and a superior ovary bearing three styles. The fruit is a small capsule dehiscing by valves to release numerous minute seeds, the inflorescence rendered slightly viscid by the glandular hairs.

GBIF treats the binomial as a synonym, with Arenaria glanduligera here regarded as the accepted name for the taxon. The species belongs to the large and taxonomically intricate genus Arenaria of the Caryophyllaceae, well represented in the Himalaya by a swarm of high-alpine cushion species adapted to cold, wind and intense radiation. It is locally frequent in suitable terrain and of no conservation concern.

Author: Edgew. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, McNeill's revisional studies of Arenaria (Caryophyllaceae)

Aceraceae

Arisaema decipiens

by G & P Jürgens

Schott

Sikkim 2006 70 ergebnis
Sikkim India Kalipokhri 2900m, May

Description

Arisaema decipiens (Schott) is a tuberous perennial of the family Araceae (the genus is here listed under the synonymous family heading Aceraceae) distributed through the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, from northeast India and Myanmar through southern China to Vietnam, Japan and Malaysia. With only around 230 GBIF occurrences it is a comparatively localised species of the moist eastern montane forests. It grows in the shaded understorey of evergreen and mixed broad-leaved forest, on humus-rich slopes and among rocks, principally between 2,000 and 3,000 m, as exemplified by the collection from Kalipokhri in Sikkim, India, at 2,900 m in May, when the cohort of fresh inflorescences emerges with the spring growth.

The plant arises from a depressed-globose tuber and produces a pseudostem formed by the overlapping leaf sheaths. Typically a single trifoliolate (occasionally pedately divided) leaf is produced, with elliptic to ovate, acuminate leaflets. The inflorescence is the characteristic aroid spadix enclosed by a green to purplish spathe striped with white; the spathe limb is hooded and tapers to a slender tip, while the spadix appendix is slender and stipitate. As in most Arisaema the species is paradioecious, individual plants changing functional sex between male and female phases according to size and vigour. The fruit is a head of red berries borne on the persistent infructescence.

Arisaema is a large and taxonomically intricate genus in which species boundaries rest heavily on spathe coloration and spadix-appendix form, and A. decipiens belongs to a closely related complex of eastern Himalayan cobra-lilies. Its size-dependent sex change is of considerable interest to reproductive ecologists. Restricted to the wetter eastern ranges, the species is less common than its western congeners but is not currently regarded as threatened.

Author: Schott · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 23, Gusman & Gusman: The Genus Arisaema (2006)

Araceae

Arisaema echinatum

by GP Jürgens

(Wall.) Schott

Sikkim2004 326 P587
Sikkim/India Kokchurong 3400m May
Sikkim2004 327 P588
Sikkim/India Kokchurong 3400m May
Garh 07 86 ergebnis
India Garhwal Trijugi Narayan 2450m, June

Description

Arisaema echinatum is a tuberous aroid of the Himalaya, distributed through China, Nepal, India and Bhutan, with about 44 georeferenced records spread along the temperate to subalpine Himalayan belt. It grows in moist, shaded forest, among rhododendron and conifer scrub and on humus-rich banks, generally between 2400 and 3500 m. The cited collections from Kokchurong in Sikkim (3400 m, May) and from Trijugi Narayan in Garhwal (2450 m, June) bracket its altitudinal range and show its emergence and flowering through the late spring and early monsoon as the soil warms.

The plant arises from a depressed-globose tuber and usually bears one or two pedately compound leaves, each divided into several oblong-elliptic, acuminate leaflets borne on a long sheathing petiole. The inflorescence comprises a spathe with a cylindrical tube and an incurved, acuminate limb, enclosing the spadix; the diagnostic feature is the sterile appendix of the spadix, which is roughened or echinate with projecting papillae or processes, giving the species its name. As in most Arisaema the plants are sequentially hermaphrodite, shifting sex with size. The infructescence is a dense head of crowded scarlet berries.

Arisaema echinatum, transferred to the genus by Schott from Wallich's basionym, belongs to the taxonomically intricate Himalayan section of the genus, where appendix morphology is a key diagnostic. Pollination is by small flies and fungus gnats lured into and temporarily trapped by the spathe, and the bright berries are bird-dispersed. With a restricted montane range and few records, it is potentially sensitive to forest loss, though it has not been formally assessed for conservation.

Author: (Wall.) Schott · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Gusman & Gusman The Genus Arisaema