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Spring

Urticaceae

Chamabainia cuspidata

by G & P Jürgens

Wight

BhutanPG2011 92 ergebnis
Bhutan Chogcham, 3250m June
Sikkim2011 6
Bhutan Chogcham, 3250m June
Sikkim 2006 228 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Ramman 2100m, May

Description

Chamabainia cuspidata is a small creeping member of the nettle family ranging widely through the Himalaya, southern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia to Sri Lanka and Indonesia; GBIF records around 713 occurrences across China, Taiwan, Nepal, India, the Philippines, Bhutan and other tropical Asian countries. It is a plant of moist, shaded temperate and subtropical forest, carpeting damp banks, rocks, mossy ground and stream sides beneath the canopy. The images from Chogcham in Bhutan at 3250 m in June and from Ramman in West Bengal at 2100 m in May show it across a broad altitudinal span in cool, humid montane forest, where it forms low, spreading mats on the forest floor.

It is a slender, prostrate to creeping perennial herb with filiform stems rooting at the nodes and forming extensive ground-hugging patches. The leaves are small, opposite, ovate to broadly ovate, with a distinctly cuspidate apex (the source of the epithet) and a crenate-toothed margin, three-veined from the base and, like much of the family, lacking the stinging hairs of true nettles. The plant is monoecious, the minute, apetalous unisexual flowers borne in small dense axillary clusters; staminate flowers with a few stamens and pistillate flowers with a single ovary. The fruit is a small ovoid achene enclosed by the persistent perianth.

Chamabainia is a small genus within the Urticaceae, related to Pilea and the broader Elatostema alliance of shade-loving, mostly herbaceous forest plants; this species is the most widespread member and the type of the genus. Its creeping, mat-forming habit, reduced wind- or self-pollinated flowers and nodal rooting suit it to the humid, low-light understorey it occupies. It is common and widespread, of no conservation concern, but characteristic of well-shaded, moisture-retaining montane forest floors across tropical and subtropical Asia.

Author: Wight · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Urticaceae), Friis treatment of Urticaceae

Rosaceae

Chamaecallis perpusilloides

by GP Jürgens

(W.W.Sm.) Smedmark

Sikkim2011 285
Sikkim Lada-La 3800m, June
Sikkim2011 286
Sikkim Lada-La 3800m, June
Nepal 2001 285 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Lambra Kharka 3100m, May

Description

Chamaecallis perpusilloides is a diminutive alpine cushion herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan; its roughly 64 georeferenced collections trace a narrow Sino-Himalayan distribution. The species occupies the upper subalpine and alpine belt, where it grows in short turf, among rocks and on humus-rich, well-drained alpine slopes. The gatherings noted in the caption, from Lada-La in Sikkim at 3800 m in June and from Lambra Kharka in Gorkha, Nepal at 3100 m in May, are representative, the plant flowering early in the season at roughly 3000-4500 m on cool, moist, often grazed pasture.

It is a low, tufted to mat-forming perennial growing from a slender branched rootstock that gives rise to dense rosettes of small leaves. The leaves are crowded, trifoliolate with cuneate, few-toothed leaflets, and somewhat hairy, forming compact rosettes pressed close to the ground. The small flowers are solitary or few in number on short pedicels and barely overtop the foliage; they have five sepals alternating with an epicalyx, five small petals and few stamens, the receptacle bearing a small cluster of carpels that mature into dry achenes.

This taxon, based on the basionym described by W. W. Smith and transferred by Smedmark to the segregate genus Chamaecallis, exemplifies the recent dismemberment of the broadly defined Sibbaldia on molecular and morphological evidence; the original web placement under the Sibbaldia name reflects that history. The dwarf cushion habit and early flowering are adaptations to a short, cold growing season at high elevation. Pollination is by generalist alpine insects. No formal Red List assessment exists, but its restricted high-montane niche makes it potentially sensitive to alpine warming and grazing pressure.

Author: (W.W.Sm.) Smedmark · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Sibbaldia phylogeny (Smedmark) monograph

Orchideaceae

Cheirostylis yunnanensis

by GP Jürgens

Rolfe

Bh2008 488 G757 1
Bhutan Puna Tsang-Chu 1600m, May
Nepal1992 75 P108 ergebnis
Nepal Chirwa 1260m March 

Description

Cheirostylis yunnanensis is a small terrestrial jewel orchid of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, recorded by GBIF (129 occurrences) from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand. It inhabits shaded, humus-rich forest floors, mossy banks and rocky slopes in warm-temperate to subtropical broad-leaved and evergreen forest, broadly between 1000 and 2000 m. The documented plants from the Puna Tsang-Chu valley in Bhutan at 1600 m (May) and from Chirwa in eastern Nepal at 1260 m (March) bracket its lower-montane range and reveal a spring flowering period coinciding with the pre-monsoon flush of forest growth.

The species is a diminutive, creeping herb arising from a fleshy, jointed, often reddish rhizome that runs along the substrate surface, rooting at the nodes. The few small leaves are ovate, clustered toward the stem base, sometimes withering by flowering, with a velvety green to bronzed lamina. The inflorescence is a short, few-flowered terminal raceme on a glandular-pubescent peduncle. The small white flowers have connate sepals forming a tube; the diagnostic lip (labellum) bears a saccate base enclosing two glandular calli and an apex that is broadened and divided into two fan-shaped, fringed or toothed lobes, the generic name referring to this hand-like column structure. The fruit is a small ribbed capsule.

Described by Rolfe, the species belongs to genus Cheirostylis (subfamily Orchidoideae, tribe Cranichideae, subtribe Goodyerinae), the rhizomatous jewel orchids prized for foliage and intricate floral architecture. Like all terrestrial orchids it relies on mycorrhizal fungi and on shaded, undisturbed forest floor microhabitats, making it sensitive to forest clearance. Its inconspicuous size means populations are easily overlooked; though not formally assessed, it is CITES-listed as an orchid and locally uncommon.

Author: Rolfe · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Genera Orchidacearum: Orchidoideae (Pridgeon et al.)

Apocynaceae

Chonemorpha fragrans

by GP Jürgens

Alston

Bh09 349 P564
Bhutan Wangdi, 2600m June
Nepal 97 552 G1079
Nepal Sabha-Khola 550m May

Description

Chonemorpha fragrans Alston is a large woody climber of tropical and subtropical Asia, ranging from India, Nepal and Myanmar through southern China and Indochina to Thailand, Sri Lanka and western Malesia; GBIF documents about 769 occurrences across this Indo-Malesian span. It is a liana of moist forest, forest margins and riverine thickets, climbing into the canopy from low elevations into the lower hills. The photographed material spans this amplitude, from the Sabha-Khola in lowland Nepal at 550 m in May to Wangdi in Bhutan at 2,600 m in June, the latter an unusually high record for an essentially subtropical climber.

It is a robust, twining liana with stout woody stems exuding milky latex when cut, as is general in the family. The leaves are opposite, large, broadly ovate to obovate, often softly tomentose beneath, with an acuminate apex and entire margin. The flowers are large and showy, borne in terminal cymes; the salverform corolla is white with a yellow throat, fragrant, and 5-8 cm across, with five broad, asymmetric, overlapping lobes. The fruit is a pair of long, slender, cylindrical follicles that split to release numerous flattened seeds, each bearing an apical tuft of silky hairs (coma) for wind dispersal.

Chonemorpha belongs to the Apocynaceae (subfam. Apocynoideae), the woody twining members of the dogbane family. C. fragrans is grown as an ornamental for its large fragrant blooms and yields a stem fibre and medicinally used alkaloids. Widespread across forested Indo-Malesia and tolerant of forest-edge and disturbed habitats, it is not of conservation concern; its comose seeds and liana habit support effective dispersal and rapid colonisation of canopy gaps.

Author: Alston · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Bhutan, Apocynaceae treatment in Flora Malesiana, Middleton studies of Asian Apocynaceae

Oleaceae

Chrysojasminum humile

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Banfi

Bhutan2014 1028
Bhutan Paro 2400m, May
Nepal 97 73 P115
Nepal above Meta-Khola 1600m April

Description

Chrysojasminum humile, the yellow Italian jasmine, is a shrub native from the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia eastward through the Himalaya into China, with GBIF recording about 1850 occurrences and many cultivated or naturalised collections worldwide. In its Asian range it grows on open hillsides, forest edges, dry rocky slopes and scrub on calcareous or well-drained soils. The illustrated material comes from Bhutan at Paro near 2400 m, flowering in May, and from Nepal above Meta-Khola at about 1600 m in April; across the Himalaya the species typically occupies the warm-temperate zone between roughly 1200 and 2800 m.

The plant is an erect or somewhat sprawling, evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub with green, angled, glabrous twigs. The leaves are alternate and pinnately compound with three to seven (sometimes more) leaflets, the terminal leaflet largest, elliptic to ovate, glabrous and shining. The flowers are borne in terminal cymes and are bright yellow, fragrant, with a slender corolla tube expanding into five spreading lobes; the calyx is small with short teeth. The fruit is a shining black, ellipsoid to globose berry, two-lobed when both carpels develop.

Long treated within Jasminum, this species and its allies were segregated into Chrysojasminum on molecular and morphological grounds, the yellow-flowered jasmines forming a distinct lineage within Oleaceae. Highly variable, it encompasses numerous named forms and is much grown as an ornamental, accounting for its scattered records far outside the native range. Widespread and adaptable, it is of no conservation concern, and its nectar-rich flowers attract bees and butterflies.

Author: (L.) Banfi · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Oleaceae revision (Green)

Saxifragaceae

Chrysosplenium lanuginosum

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2014 828
Bhutan Punaka 1310, May

Description

Chrysosplenium lanuginosum Hook.f. & Thomson is a small golden-saxifrage of the Sino-Himalayan region, recorded from China, Taiwan, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Japan, with around 430 occurrences in GBIF. It is a herb of moist, shaded habitats, growing on wet rocks, streambanks, seepage faces, mossy ledges and damp forest floors, broadly between about 1000 and 3000 m. The photographed plant was found at Punakha in Bhutan at about 1310 m in May, in the warm, humid lower-montane forest zone where this creeping herb forms patches on perpetually wet substrates beside watercourses.

The plant is a low, soft, stoloniferous perennial spreading by slender prostrate runners that root at the nodes, the whole plant clothed in a soft woolly indumentum (the epithet lanuginosum, woolly). The leaves are alternate or the lower opposite, orbicular to flabellate or broadly ovate with a crenate margin, somewhat fleshy and hairy. The inflorescence is a small terminal cyme subtended by leafy, often yellowish-green floral bracts that enhance the display. The flowers are minute and apetalous, the showy part being the four greenish-yellow sepals; the stamens are typically eight, and the ovary is half-inferior. The fruit is a small two-beaked capsule splitting to release numerous tiny seeds.

Within Saxifragaceae, Chrysosplenium is a distinctive genus of shade- and moisture-loving herbs distinguished by their petal-less flowers and conspicuous coloured bracts that attract small insect pollinators. Adapted to constantly humid, low-light microhabitats, the species is an indicator of clean seepage and streamside conditions. It is fairly widespread across the eastern Himalaya and not of conservation concern, though dependent on undisturbed riparian forest.

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

Saxifragaceae

Chrysosplenium nepalense

by GP Jürgens

D.Don

Bh2008 378 P588
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Bh2008 10 P16
Bhutan Thimphu-Chu, 2800m April
Sikkim2004 54 P97
Sikkim West-Bengal, Bersay 2810m April

Description

Chrysosplenium nepalense is a small herbaceous perennial of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent mountains, recorded by GBIF (339 occurrences) from Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and southwestern China. It is a plant of cool, perpetually moist habitats, colonising shaded stream banks, dripping rock faces, springs and damp humus-rich ground within temperate forest, generally between about 2500 and 3500 m. The collections illustrated from the Thimphu Chu in Bhutan at 2800 m and from Bersay in Sikkim, West Bengal, at 2810 m, both in April, are typical of its early-season flowering when snowmelt keeps the substrate saturated.

The plant is a low, mat-forming herb with slender, creeping and rooting stems that produce leafy stolons. The leaves are opposite, petiolate and reniform to broadly ovate, with a shallowly crenate margin and a cordate base. As in the genus, the flowers lack petals; the inflorescence is a flattened terminal cyme subtended by conspicuous yellowish-green leafy bracts that function as the principal visual attractant. Each small flower has four greenish-yellow sepals, four or eight stamens inserted around a flattened disc, and a half-inferior ovary. The fruit is a two-lobed, beaked capsule that splits widely to expose numerous minute seeds.

Chrysosplenium is a taxonomically intricate genus of moisture-loving saxifrages, and C. nepalense belongs to the opposite-leaved Himalayan assemblage that has been variously circumscribed. The petal-less flowers are pollinated by small flies and beetles drawn to the bract display, while the dispersal of seeds is aided by raindrop splash from the open capsules. The species is widespread within its moist montane niche and faces no recognised conservation threat, though its dependence on undisturbed seeps makes it locally sensitive to changes in hydrology and forest cover.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Monograph of Chrysosplenium (Hara)

Saxifragaceae

Chrysosplenium tenellum

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2014 917
Bhutan Chele-La 4300m, May
Bh2008 583 P873
Bhutan Chele-La 3900m April

Description

Chrysosplenium tenellum is a diminutive, high-alpine member of its genus restricted to the central and eastern Himalaya, with a sparse GBIF record (32 occurrences) from India, Nepal, Bhutan and China that reflects both its narrow range and its inconspicuous habit. It grows in cold, wet places near the upper limit of vegetation: on dripping rocks, beside snowmelt rills, in mossy seepages and on shaded humus among boulders, generally between about 3500 and 4500 m. The collections illustrated from the Chele La in Bhutan, at 4300 m in May and 3900 m in April, document its very early flowering immediately following snowmelt at these elevations.

The plant is a delicate, slender perennial herb, the epithet tenellum aptly describing its tenuous form. It produces fine, creeping and rooting stems that form small loose patches, with thin filiform stolons. The leaves are small, alternate or the lower opposite, petiolate and reniform to orbicular with a few shallow crenations. As in all Chrysosplenium the flowers lack petals; the tiny terminal cyme is subtended by small yellowish-green leafy bracts that provide the floral display. Each flower has four greenish sepals, few stamens and a half-inferior ovary maturing into a small two-lobed, divaricately beaked capsule that opens to release minute seeds dispersed by splashing water.

Within the moisture-dependent genus Chrysosplenium, C. tenellum represents the alpine extreme, a slight plant of fragile, ephemerally wet microhabitats at the margins of permanent snow. Its small flowers are visited by the few high-altitude flies active early in the season. Owing to its restricted distribution, specialised hydrological niche and low number of documented occurrences, the species is potentially vulnerable to warming-driven shifts in snowmelt regimes, although it has not been formally assessed.

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

Asteraceae

Cirsium interpositum

by GP Jürgens

Petr.

Bhutan2015 459
Bh15-549
Bhutan2014 204
Bhutan Trashyangtse 2100m, May

Description

Cirsium interpositum is a Himalayan and East Asian thistle recorded from China, Turkey, India and Korea, with 55 georeferenced occurrences. Under the GBIF backbone the name is treated as a SYNONYM, with Cirsium interpositum itself given as the accepted name in this dataset, reflecting unsettled circumscription within the genus; it is closely allied to the C. lipskyi complex referenced in the source record. It grows on grassy montane slopes, in open scrub, forest margins and disturbed clearings, generally in the temperate zone. It was photographed at Trashyangtse in eastern Bhutan at 2100 m in May, flowering in the cool spring of the mid-montane valleys.

It is an erect spiny perennial herb with a ribbed, often winged and prickly stem arising from a stout rootstock. The alternate leaves are oblong-lanceolate, pinnately lobed and conspicuously armed with marginal spines, green and roughly hairy above and frequently paler or tomentose beneath, the bases decurrent. The flower heads are ovoid to subglobose, solitary or clustered at the stem tips, with an involucre of many imbricate, spine-tipped phyllaries. All florets are tubular (discoid) and purple to reddish-purple, the slender corollas deeply lobed. The fruit is a smooth oblong cypsela crowned by a pappus of long plumose (feathery) bristles, a defining feature of Cirsium.

The genus Cirsium belongs to tribe Cardueae and is distinguished from the closely related Carduus by its plumose rather than barbellate pappus. The taxonomic ambiguity surrounding C. interpositum is typical of the genus, in which hybridisation and variation blur species limits across the Sino-Himalaya. Ecologically it is a plant of open, disturbed montane ground, visited by bees and butterflies. It is not assessed as threatened.

Author: Petr. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Cirsium monograph (Cardueae systematics, Werner & Petrak)

Menispermaceae

Cissampelos pareira

by GP Jürgens

L.

Bhutan2014 691
Bhutan Phobjika 2810m, May (see also Opuntia humifusa)
Nepal 97 29 P46 ergebnis
Nepal Dhoban 735m, April

Description

Cissampelos pareira is a pantropical climbing vine with an exceptionally broad distribution spanning the Americas, Africa, Madagascar and tropical Asia; GBIF records some 12107 occurrences across Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina, India, Madagascar, Nepal, the Philippines, Ecuador and many other countries. It is a plant of warm, often disturbed habitats, scrambling over hedges, thickets, forest margins, fences and waste ground from sea level well into the hills. The collections cited from Phobjika in Bhutan at about 2810 m in May and from Dhoban in Nepal at about 735 m in April illustrate its wide ecological amplitude in the Himalayan foothills, where it persists from the subtropical lowlands up into cool mid-montane settings.

It is a slender, twining perennial herb or woody-based liana, the stems wiry and often finely pubescent. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to orbicular or peltate, frequently emarginate or mucronate at the apex and cordate to truncate at the base, with a long petiole inserted near the margin. The species is dioecious: the small greenish male flowers have fused sepals and a cup-shaped corolla with united stamens, while the female flowers are borne in axillary clusters subtended by conspicuous, often enlarged leaf-like bracts. The fruit is a small, laterally compressed, hairy red drupe with a characteristically curved (horseshoe-shaped) endocarp.

A member of the moonseed family (Menispermaceae), C. pareira is famous as a source of bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids and is used pan-tropically in traditional medicine, where it forms part of the complex of plants known as pareira brava. The curved endocarp and fleshy drupe are adapted to bird dispersal, which together with its tolerance of disturbance underlies its remarkable cosmopolitan spread. Taxonomically the species is broadly circumscribed and notoriously variable, encompassing numerous infraspecific forms, and it is widespread and of no conservation concern.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Diels Menispermaceae (Das Pflanzenreich)