Tag:

Spring

Pinaceae

Abies densa

by GP Jürgens

Griff.

Bhutan2015 402
Bhutan Tumching-La 4000m, October
Bhutan2014 420 ergebnis
Bhutan Jakar 2400m, May
Sikkim 2006 82 ergebnis
Sikkim, West-Bengal Kalipokhri 3100m, May

Description

Abies densa, the Bhutan or eastern Himalayan fir, is a large evergreen conifer of the eastern Himalaya, ranging through Bhutan, Sikkim and adjacent India, eastern Nepal, southern China and northern Myanmar (gbif_countries: BT, IN, CN, NP, MM, CA, ZZ, BE), with about 192 GBIF occurrences. It is the dominant tree of the upper subalpine forest belt, forming dense stands often mixed with Rhododendron, birch and juniper and grading into the treeline krummholz. The illustrated records span Jakar in Bhutan at about 2400 m up to Tumching-La near 4000 m and Kalipokhri in the Sikkim–West Bengal borderland at about 3100 m, documenting its occupation of the cool, humid, high-montane to subalpine zone.

The tree reaches considerable height with a straight bole and conical crown, bearing horizontally spreading branches. The needle-like leaves are arranged spirally but pectinately spread, linear and flattened, dark green and glossy above with two whitish stomatal bands beneath, and notched or rounded at the apex. The pollen cones are small and lateral; the seed cones are erect, cylindrical, dark violet to blue-black when young, and, as in all firs, disintegrate on the tree at maturity to release winged seeds, leaving the persistent central axis standing.

Closely allied to Abies spectabilis of the western Himalaya, A. densa is sometimes treated as its eastern vicariant, the two replacing one another along the range. It is an ecologically important timber and watershed species and a keystone of subalpine forest. Though still locally abundant, its treeline populations are sensitive to climate shifts and grazing, and it is assessed as of Least Concern overall while warranting monitoring at range margins.

Author: Griff. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Farjon's A Handbook of the World's Conifers, IUCN Red List conifer assessments

Sapindaceae

Acer cappadocicum

by GP Jürgens

Gled.

Bhutan2014 823
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1600m, May
Bhutan2014 824
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1600m, May

Description

Acer cappadocicum is a deciduous maple with a remarkable disjunct distribution spanning the Caucasus, the western and central Asian mountains and the Himalaya to western China. GBIF (some 4,164 occurrences) records it from the Caucasus (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran), China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Russia, alongside extensive cultivated material across Europe and North America. It grows in moist temperate and montane mixed forest, often along streams and on north-facing slopes. The photographed tree is from the Mo-Chu valley in western Bhutan at about 1,600 m, in May, within its eastern Himalayan range of roughly 1,500–3,000 m.

It is a medium to large tree to 20–30 m with smooth greyish bark and reddish young shoots. The leaves are opposite, palmately 5–7-lobed, the lobes triangular-ovate, long-acuminate and entire-margined, glabrous and bright green, turning clear yellow in autumn. The inflorescence is a terminal erect corymb of small yellowish-green flowers. The fruit is the characteristic acerine double samara, the two nutlets bearing widely divergent, nearly horizontally spreading wings.

Acer cappadocicum is variable over its great range and several subspecies are recognised, the Himalayan and Chinese populations sometimes segregated as subsp. sinicum and others. Now placed in Sapindaceae (formerly Aceraceae), it is a widespread and non-threatened species, valued ornamentally for its autumn colour. Its trans-Asian range makes it a classic example of the temperate-forest floristic link between the Himalaya, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The input wp_link erroneously references A. campbellii.

Author: Gled. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, van Gelderen et al.: Maples of the World (1994)

Sapindaceae

Acer oblongum

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex DC.

Bhutan2014 657
Bhutan Wangdi-Phodrang 2300m, May

Description

Acer oblongum, the evergreen or Himalayan maple, is a broadly distributed tree of the southern and eastern Himalaya and the mountains of southern and central China, recorded by GBIF from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and Taiwan (with numerous cultivated records in Europe and North America) across some 3,600 georeferenced occurrences. It grows in subtropical to warm-temperate broadleaf and mixed forest, on hill slopes, ridges, riverine forest and forest margins, generally between about 600 and 2,500 m. The photographed tree from Wangdi-Phodrang in western Bhutan at around 2,300 m in May represents its upper montane occurrence, where it flowers in spring with the flush of new growth.

Unusually for a maple, A. oblongum is evergreen or semi-evergreen, and equally atypical are its leaves, which are simple, entire and unlobed, oblong-lanceolate to ovate-oblong, leathery, glossy dark green above and conspicuously glaucous or whitish beneath, with pinnate or triplinerved venation rather than the palmate lobing characteristic of most of the genus. The flowers are small, greenish-yellow, andromonoecious or polygamous, borne in corymbose or paniculate clusters. The fruit is the typical maple double samara, the two nutlets each bearing a membranous wing; in this species the wings are spreading at an acute to nearly parallel angle, adapted to autorotating wind dispersal.

Acer oblongum is treated within section Pentaphylla (series Trifida) of the genus Acer, now placed in an enlarged Sapindaceae following the merger of the former Aceraceae. Its entire, evergreen leaves make it one of the most distinctive of the Asian maples and a noteworthy example of foliar reduction within a predominantly palmately-lobed genus, of interest to studies of leaf-form evolution. The species is widespread, locally common, and valued horticulturally and for its timber; it is not considered globally threatened, although particular regional populations face pressure from forest clearance.

Author: Wall. ex DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, van Gelderen, de Jong & Oterdoom: Maples of the World

Ranunculaceae

Adonis davidii

by GP Jürgens

Franch.

Bhutan2014 981
Bhutan2014 521
Bhutan2014 520
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May
Bh2008 15 P25
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Bh2008 304 G469
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Bh2008 305 G471
Bhutan Ura 3400m, April

Description

Adonis davidii is a perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and southwestern China, with GBIF records (462 occurrences) concentrated in China and Bhutan. It grows in cool, shaded habitats: coniferous and mixed forest understorey, forest margins, shrubberies and damp meadows, generally between 2500 and 4000 m. The Bhutanese gatherings figured here span this range, from Thimphu-Chu at 2800 m and Ura at 3400 m in April to Chele-La at 4000 m in May, illustrating its early-spring to early-summer flowering as snow retreats and its preference for moist, humus-rich montane soils in partial shade.

The plant arises from a short, thickened rhizome bearing fibrous roots, producing erect or ascending stems 15-50 cm tall that are usually simple or sparingly branched. The leaves are alternate, sessile or shortly petiolate, and several times ternately or pinnately dissected into narrow, linear-lanceolate ultimate segments, giving a finely divided, fern-like aspect. The solitary terminal flowers are white, often tinged blue, lilac or pink, with numerous spreading petaloid sepals (the true perianth) surrounding a central cluster of yellow stamens and free carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of numerous obovoid, wrinkled achenes, each tipped by a short persistent style.

Adonis (Ranunculaceae) is a chiefly Eurasian genus distinguished by its many free achenes and showy perianth; like many congeners A. davidii contains cardioactive compounds and should be regarded as toxic. Within the genus it belongs to the white-flowered perennial assemblage centred on China. It is not currently considered threatened, being locally frequent across an extensive forest range, though it depends on intact montane forest cover and is therefore sensitive to logging and habitat fragmentation.

Author: Franch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Monograph of the Genus Adonis (Ranunculaceae)

Ranunculaceae

Adonis nepalensis

by GP Jürgens

Simonov.

Sikkim2004 168 P284
Sikkim/India Singalila 4200m May

Description

Adonis nepalensis is an alpine perennial herb of the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, India and Bhutan (the additional scattered GBIF records from Hungary and Morocco almost certainly representing cultivated or misattributed material), with a small total of 28 occurrences in GBIF. It is a plant of high open habitats, growing in alpine meadows, grassy and rocky slopes and the margins of dwarf scrub near and above the treeline. The photographed plant was collected on the Singalila ridge on the Sikkim/India border at about 4200 m in May, a high-altitude spring-flowering station typical of the species, which blooms soon after snowmelt.

The plant grows from a short, stout rootstock and produces erect, leafy stems. The leaves are alternate and finely dissected, repeatedly divided into narrow, linear ultimate segments, giving them a feathery aspect characteristic of the genus. The flowers are solitary and terminal, fairly large and showy, with numerous spreading petals that are yellow (the usual colour in the Himalayan species), subtended by a green, dissected involucre of leaf-like bracts; the numerous stamens and free carpels are borne on a slightly elongate receptacle. The fruit is a head of small, dry, one-seeded achenes.

Adonis belongs to the Ranunculaceae and, like many genera of the family, contains cardiac glycosides and other toxic compounds. Adonis nepalensis is the principal Himalayan representative, distinguished by its alpine habit and yellow flowers, and is a relatively narrow-ranged montane species. Its high-elevation, snowmelt-dependent populations make it of biogeographic interest as part of the specialised Himalayan alpine flora and potentially sensitive to warming and to the disturbance of fragile alpine turf.

Author: Simonov. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Ranunculaceae of the Himalaya

Rutaceae

Aegle marmelos

by GP Jürgens

(L.) Corrêa

Nepal 97 557 P1087
Nepal Sabha-Khola 550m May

Description

Aegle marmelos (L.) Corrêa, the bael or wood-apple, is a deciduous tree of the Rutaceae native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia and now widely cultivated and naturalised across the tropics. Its very numerous records center on India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand, Indochina, southern China and Malesia, with introductions into the Americas, Australia and elsewhere. The species grows in dry deciduous forest, scrub and on cultivated and temple ground, tolerating poor, alkaline and seasonally arid soils. It is essentially a lowland and foothill plant, and the tree photographed along the Sabha-Khola in Nepal at 550 m in May represents the warm sub-Himalayan tract where it flowers with the pre-monsoon heat.

The tree reaches up to about 10–15 m, with a spreading crown and armed branches bearing stout, straight, axillary spines. The leaves are alternate and trifoliolate (rarely with five leaflets), the leaflets ovate-lanceolate, crenulate and dotted with translucent aromatic oil glands. The flowers are greenish-white, fragrant, bisexual, borne in short axillary panicles, with four to five petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a large, globose, woody-rinded amphisarca, grey-green ripening to yellowish, the hard shell enclosing a sweet, aromatic, mucilaginous orange pulp with numerous wool-coated seeds.

Monotypic or nearly so within Aegle, the species is of exceptional cultural and economic importance: it is sacred in Hindu tradition, associated with Shiva, and is a long-established medicinal plant, the unripe fruit valued in the treatment of dysentery and digestive disorders. The pulp is consumed fresh and in beverages. Owing to its hardiness and usefulness it is extensively planted, and it is nowhere considered threatened, though its near-ubiquitous cultivation obscures the limits of its truly native range.

Author: (L.) Corrêa · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Pakistan, Stone: Rutaceae (Flora Malesiana)

Orchideaceae

Aerides multiflora

by GP Jürgens

Roxb.

Sikkim2004 445 G776
Sikkim/India Tista-Valley 2000m May

Description

Aerides multiflora is an epiphytic orchid of the subtribe Aeridinae, native to the eastern Himalayas and extending into Southeast Asia. Its natural range encompasses Nepal, northeast India (Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh), Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, and southwest China (Yunnan). The species inhabits humid, semi-deciduous and evergreen forests at elevations of 200–2,000 m, typically growing on mossy tree trunks and branches in well-lit positions.

The plant produces stout, terete stems 20–40 cm long, clothed with distichous, coriaceous, strap-shaped leaves that are 15–25 cm long and unequally bilobed at the apex. The inflorescence is a densely many-flowered, pendent raceme 15–30 cm long, bearing 20–40 fragrant flowers. Individual flowers are 2–2.5 cm across, white to pale rose-pink with purple spots, the lip trilobed with a prominent forward-pointing spur. The mid-lobe is fleshy and tongue-shaped. Flowering occurs from April to June.

Aerides multiflora is valued in horticulture for its abundant, sweetly fragrant blooms. The species is under pressure from overcollection and habitat degradation across its range. Like all orchids, it is listed under CITES Appendix II, regulating international trade.

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

Didymocarpinae

Aeschynanthus parviflorus

by GP Jürgens

Spreng.

Nepal 1994 226 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Mewa-Khola 1900m April 
Nepal 1994 218 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Mewa-Khola 1900m April 
Sikkim 2006 301 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1750m, May

Description

Aeschynanthus parviflorus is an epiphytic gesneriad widely distributed through the eastern Himalaya and into Southeast Asia, with GBIF records from Nepal, northeast India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and southern China (additional codes represent herbaria and cultivation). It grows as an epiphyte or lithophyte on mossy trunks, branches and shaded rocks in humid broad-leaved evergreen and subtropical forest, mainly between 1,000 and 2,200 m. The featured collections come from the Mewa Khola in eastern Nepal at about 1,900 m in April and from Chaana in West Bengal at around 1,750 m in May, within its core mid-montane belt.

The plant has pendent to scrambling, somewhat fleshy stems rooting at the nodes and bearing opposite, coriaceous, elliptic to lanceolate leaves with entire margins and an acuminate apex. The flowers are clustered in the leaf axils or at the branch tips; the calyx is short and cupular, and the corolla is a curved, narrowly tubular structure, red to orange-red, with small spreading lobes, suited to nectarivorous bird and insect pollination. The fruit is a long, slender, two-valved capsule releasing numerous minute seeds, each furnished with a tuft of fine hairs that aids wind dispersal in the canopy.

The species is treated within Gesneriaceae (subtribe Didymocarpinae, genus Aeschynanthus), a large Asian genus of canopy epiphytes whose long-tubed flowers exemplify ornithophily in the Old World tropics. Aeschynanthus parviflorus is common and not regarded as threatened, but as a canopy specialist it depends on intact humid forest and declines where mid-elevation forest is fragmented or logged.

Author: Spreng. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18 (Gesneriaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Mendum et al.: Revision of Aeschynanthus (Gesneriaceae)

Sapindaceae

Aesculus indica

by GP Jürgens

(Wall. ex Cambess.) Hook.

Nepal 97 610 G1181
Nepal Godawari 1350m May
Garh 07 82 ergebnis
India Garhwal Trijugi Narayan 2300m, June

Description

Aesculus indica ((Wall. ex Cambess.) Hook.), the Indian horse-chestnut, is a large deciduous tree endemic to the western and central Himalaya, occurring from Afghanistan and Pakistan through northern India and Nepal to Bhutan. The roughly 1,140 GBIF records, supplemented by numerous cultivated occurrences in Britain, Europe and North America, reflect both its native montane range and its popularity as an ornamental and avenue tree. It is a characteristic component of moist temperate forest, growing along streamsides, in shady ravines and on cool north-facing slopes, generally between 1,200 and 3,000 m, as illustrated by the Nepal record from Godawari at 1,350 m in May and the Garhwal collection from Trijugi Narayan at 2,300 m in June.

The tree reaches 20–30 m, with a broad rounded crown and smooth greenish-grey bark. The leaves are opposite and palmately compound, with five to nine lanceolate, finely serrate, long-acuminate leaflets that are sessile to shortly stalked and taper to the base. The flowers are borne in large, erect, terminal thyrses (panicles) up to 30 cm long; each flower is white to pinkish with a yellow or red blotch at the base of the petals, the stamens long-exserted. The fruit is a large, rough, pyriform, spineless capsule containing one to three glossy dark-brown seeds ("conkers").

The seeds are rich in bitter saponins and, after laborious leaching to remove toxicity, have traditionally been ground into a flour ("tattwakhar" or "bankhor") used as famine food and livestock fodder in the Himalaya. Distinguished from the European A. hippocastanum by its smooth, unarmed fruit and narrower leaflets, A. indica is widely planted for shade and timber. Though locally heavily exploited, the species remains relatively common within its range.

Author: (Wall. ex Cambess.) Hook. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Pakistan, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 12, Hardin: A Revision of the American Hippocastanaceae and the genus Aesculus

Ericaceae

Agapetes serpens

by GP Jürgens

(Wight) Sleumer

Bhutan2014 476
Bhutan Tongsa 2000m, May
Sikkim2004 95 P165
India West-Bengal, Bersay 2700m April
Nepal 97 309 P613
Nepal Honggaon 2360m May
Nepal1992 156 P228 ergebnis
Nepal Simbua-Khola 1800m March 

Description

Agapetes serpens is an eastern Himalayan epiphytic shrub distributed across India, Bhutan, Nepal and adjacent China, with around 267 GBIF occurrences; long cultivated for its pendulous flowers, it is recorded in glasshouse collections from Great Britain, Germany, the United States and New Zealand. It grows in humid temperate broad-leaved and mixed forest, perched on mossy tree trunks, branches and shaded rock faces. The images document it across a broad elevational span: Bhutan at Tongsa around 2000 m in May, West Bengal at Bersay near 2700 m in April, and Nepal at Honggaon (2360 m) and the lower Simbua-Khola valley (1800 m).

It is a scrambling to pendent evergreen shrub arising from a swollen, tuberous, woody rootstock, with long arching, bristly-hairy stems. The leaves are small, numerous, lanceolate to elliptic, leathery and arranged distichously along the stems. The flowers hang in profusion from the leaf axils on slender pedicels; the corolla is tubular, five-angled, bright red and marked with darker chevron- or V-shaped lines, with five short reflexed lobes. The stamens are included and the ovary inferior. The fruit is a small fleshy berry.

Agapetes belongs to tribe Vaccinieae of the Ericaceae, the group that includes the blueberries, and the genus is centred on the Sino-Himalayan and Southeast Asian mountains. The tuberous lignotuber is an adaptation to the epiphytic habit, storing water and nutrients, while the tubular red flowers are adapted to bird pollination. Valued as an ornamental, A. serpens is widely grown; in the wild it is locally frequent and not currently regarded as threatened.

Author: (Wight) Sleumer · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Airy Shaw revision of Agapetes