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Spring

Primulaceae

Lysimachia congestiflora

by G & P Jürgens

Hemsl.

Bhutan2014 782
Bhutan Wangdi Mo-Chu 1200m, May

Description

Lysimachia congestiflora is a wide-ranging species native across China, Taiwan, the Himalaya (Nepal, north-east India, Bhutan) and into Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Japan; its very large total of 1844 georeferenced records includes numerous naturalised and cultivated points in the United States, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Australia and Europe, reflecting its popularity as a creeping ground-cover and basket plant. It grows in moist, shaded to open ground on grassy banks, streamsides, ditches, field margins and damp roadside slopes. The Bhutan collection at Wangdi along the Mo-Chu at about 1200 m typifies its preference for warm, humid lower-montane habitats.

It is a low, mat-forming perennial herb with slender, decumbent to creeping stems that root at the lower nodes and are sparsely villous. The leaves are opposite, ovate to broadly elliptic, often gland-dotted and minutely hairy. The flowers are crowded in dense terminal clusters (hence congestiflora), each on a short pedicel; the corolla is yellow, rotate to broadly campanulate, five-lobed and frequently marked with reddish spots or a darker throat. There are five stamens, and the fruit is a small globose capsule enclosed by the persistent calyx.

Within Primulaceae the genus Lysimachia (sometimes segregated as Lysimachiopsis or placed in subgenus Idiophyton) comprises loosestrifes characterised by rotate corollas and capsular fruit. The clustered yellow flowers attract a range of generalist insect pollinators. Exceptionally adaptable and frequently weedy in cultivation, the species is abundant throughout its native range and of no conservation concern; its capacity to naturalise has even made it a minor garden escape in several regions.

Author: Hemsl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Hu & Kelso Primulaceae monographic treatments

Primulaceae

Lysimachia evalvis

by G & P Jürgens

Wall.

Sikkim 2006 282 ergebnis
Sikkim 2006 281 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1650m, May

Description

Lysimachia evalvis is a Sino-Himalayan herb distributed along the moist temperate and subtropical belt of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Indo-Burmese ranges. GBIF records (88 occurrences) span India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh and China, with scattered cultivated or vouchered material noted from the United States. It favours shaded, humid forest margins, stream banks and seepage slopes within broadleaved woodland. The species was photographed at Chaana in West Bengal, India, at about 1650 m in May, in the lower montane forests where it flowers with the onset of the pre-monsoon rains.

It is a perennial, somewhat fleshy herb with slender erect to ascending stems arising from a short rhizomatous base. The leaves are alternate to subopposite, ovate to lanceolate, entire, acuminate at the apex and often gland-dotted, borne on short petioles. The flowers are solitary or few in the upper leaf axils, with a deeply five-lobed calyx and a yellow, rotate to campanulate corolla divided into five lobes; the five stamens are inserted on the corolla tube. The fruit is a small globose capsule; as the epithet evalvis suggests, dehiscence is reduced or irregular rather than by the typical valves, a diagnostic feature within the genus.

Lysimachia (Primulaceae, formerly segregated in Myrsinaceae alliance) is a large, near-cosmopolitan genus well represented in the Himalaya. L. evalvis belongs to the predominantly Asian element of the genus, its distribution reflecting the warm, perhumid forests of the eastern Himalayan front. No formal conservation assessment is widely published; like many forest-floor herbs of this region, its persistence depends on intact humid montane forest, making habitat conversion the principal threat to local populations.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Hu's monograph of Lysimachia (Primulaceae)

Primulaceae

Lysimachia prolifera

by GP Jürgens

Klatt

Nepal 2001 255 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Niuli Kharka 2700m, May
Nepal 2001 256 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Niuli Kharka 2700m, May

Description

Lysimachia prolifera is a Sino-Himalayan species distributed across the central and eastern Himalaya and southwestern China, with verified occurrences in Nepal, India, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Pakistan; outlying records from Japan and the United States among the roughly 194 collections almost certainly reflect cultivated or misdetermined material. It is a plant of moist temperate to subalpine habitats, favouring shaded forest margins, streamsides, mossy banks and damp grassy clearings. The photographed population at Niuli Kharka in Gorkha, Nepal, at about 2700 m and flowering in May, is typical of its mid-montane band where snowmelt and monsoon moisture keep the substrate reliably humid.

The species is a perennial herb with slender, often decumbent to ascending stems arising from a creeping rhizomatous base. The leaves are simple, opposite or sometimes whorled, ovate to lanceolate, entire-margined and frequently gland-dotted, narrowing to a short petiole or sessile base. The flowers are borne singly in the leaf axils or in lax leafy racemes; the corolla is rotate and five-lobed, typically yellow, the lobes spreading and often marked with darker glands. Stamens are five, opposite the corolla lobes and shortly connate at the base, the ovary superior with a single style. The fruit is a small, globose, dehiscent capsule containing numerous minute angular seeds.

Within Primulaceae, Lysimachia is a large, taxonomically intricate genus now circumscribed broadly, and species such as L. prolifera are distinguished by subtle differences in leaf arrangement, gland distribution and inflorescence form that have historically caused confusion. Ecologically it contributes to the herbaceous understorey of Himalayan forests and is visited by generalist pollinating insects. No specific conservation concern is recorded for this widespread montane species, though, like many Himalayan herbs, it is locally sensitive to forest clearance, trampling and grazing along trekking corridors.

Author: Klatt · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Hu's monograph of Lysimachia (Primulaceae)

Lauraceae

Machilus duthei

by G & P Jürgens

King ex Hook.f.

Sikkim 2006 409 ergebnis
Sikkim Ringi-Chu 3100m, May

Description

Machilus duthei is an evergreen laurel of the Himalaya, recorded from northern India, Nepal and Pakistan, with relatively few documented occurrences across this western to central Himalayan range. It is a tree of moist temperate broad-leaved evergreen forest, occurring on shaded slopes, in ravines and along forested watercourses. It grows at mid to upper montane elevations; the tree photographed near the Ringi-Chu in Sikkim at 3,100 m in May represents an upper-elevation occurrence in the cool, humid temperate forest belt, where laurels form a notable element of the canopy and subcanopy.

The plant is a medium-sized evergreen tree with smooth bark and glabrous to finely pubescent young shoots. The leaves are alternate, coriaceous, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, entire, glabrous and glossy above, somewhat glaucous beneath, with pinnate venation and aromatic tissue typical of the family. The flowers are small, bisexual and trimerous, with six subequal perianth segments and stamens in whorls, the inner whorl glandular, borne in axillary or subterminal panicles. The fruit is a globose to ellipsoid berry seated on a persistent, slightly enlarged perianth cup at the apex of the pedicel.

The genus Machilus, closely allied to and sometimes merged with Persea, comprises evergreen Asian laurels of considerable importance in moist subtropical and temperate forest. Machilus duthei, described by King ex Hooker f. and commemorating the botanist J. F. Duthie, is a comparatively narrowly distributed Himalayan species. Given its limited documented range and dependence on undisturbed humid montane forest, it is vulnerable to habitat degradation and logging, and its sparse records indicate a need for further field survey to assess its true distribution and conservation status.

Author: King ex Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 7, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, GBIF, Kostermans: Lauraceae studies

Lauraceae

Machilus kurzii

by G & P Jürgens

King ex Hook.f.

Sikkim2004 379 P656 ergebnis
Sikkim Lachung-valley 3200 m, May
Sikkim2004 380 P657 ergebnis
Sikkim Lachung-valley 3200 m, May

Description

Machilus kurzii is an evergreen laurel of the eastern Himalaya and Southeast Asia, distributed from NE India and Bhutan through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam into SW China, as documented by its roughly 135 GBIF occurrences across IN, BT, CN, MM, TH, KH, VN and KR. The tree photographed grows in the Lachung valley of northern Sikkim at about 3,200 m in May. It is a species of humid temperate and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest, occurring on moist slopes and in ravines often dominated by other Lauraceae, Fagaceae and rhododendrons, where high rainfall and persistent cloud sustain the laurophyllous canopy across a broad altitudinal range.

It is an evergreen tree with smooth bark and glabrous to thinly pubescent twigs. The leaves are alternate, coriaceous, elliptic to oblanceolate, entire, with a pinnate venation of fine, looping secondary veins and an obtuse to shortly acuminate apex, often glaucous beneath. The flowers are small and bisexual, borne in subterminal or axillary panicles; they show the trimerous laurel plan with six tepals in two whorls, fertile stamens in several whorls including a third whorl with paired basal glands, and inward-facing anthers dehiscing by valves. The fruit is a globose to ellipsoid berry seated on a persistent, somewhat enlarged perianth base or cupule, characteristic of the genus.

Machilus, often treated within or close to Persea, is an Asian genus of the tribe Laureae whose delimitation has long been debated; molecular and floral evidence continues to refine the boundary between Machilus and Persea. The species is an integral element of mid-montane evergreen forest, contributing to canopy structure and providing fleshy fruits for birds. It is not currently considered threatened, though it depends on the maintenance of undisturbed humid broadleaf forest.

Author: King ex Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Kostermans: Lauraceae studies

Rosaceae

Maddenia himalaica

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2014 585
Bhutan Phobjika 3100m, May

Description

Maddenia himalaica is a Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan species recorded from Nepal, north-east India, Bhutan and south-west China, the 68 georeferenced occurrences including a few cultivated points in Belgium and the United States. It is a plant of cool temperate forest margins, ravines, streamsides and shrubberies, often in association with mixed broadleaved and conifer woodland. The Bhutan material was gathered at Phobjika at about 3100 m, within its usual elevational band of roughly 2400-3600 m in the upper temperate zone. Under current taxonomy GBIF treats the name as a synonym, with Maddenia himalaica regarded as the accepted name; the genus is now frequently subsumed within Prunus.

It is a deciduous shrub or small tree with glabrous to finely pubescent young branchlets and conspicuous, persistent, fringed stipules. The leaves are alternate, oblong to obovate-elliptic, acuminate, sharply and often doubly serrate at the margin, with prominent venation. The small flowers are crowded in short, dense racemes and are apetalous or nearly so, a key generic feature; the numerous stamens surround a glabrous ovary. The fruit is a small ovoid drupe, blackish at maturity, seated on the persistent hypanthium.

Maddenia has long been placed in subfamily Amygdaloideae near Prunus and Pygeum, and molecular studies support its inclusion within a broadly circumscribed Prunus, the reduced apetalous flowers being a derived condition. Its dense racemes attract small insects, and the drupes are dispersed by birds. Widespread if scattered across the Himalaya, it is not considered threatened, though its forest habitat is locally reduced by clearance and grazing.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Rehder Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs

Magnoliaceae

Magnolia campbellii

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Nepal 97 118 P204
Nepal Mewa-Khola 2470m April
Nepal 97 119 G206 2
Nepal Mewa-Khola 2470m April
Nepal1992 149 P216 ergebnis
Nepal Simbua-Khola 2500m March 

Description

Magnolia campbellii, Campbell's magnolia, is a large deciduous tree of the eastern Himalaya, native from Nepal through Sikkim and Bhutan into NE India, Myanmar and SW China; the additional GBIF codes (GB, IE, US, NZ, JP, DE and others) among its roughly 807 occurrences reflect its renown as a cultivated ornamental. The plants photographed grow in eastern Nepal in the Mewa-Khola (c. 2,470 m, April) and Simbua-Khola (c. 2,500 m, March) valleys, flowering before leaf flush in early spring. In the wild it inhabits temperate broadleaf and mixed forest on humid, well-drained slopes, typically between 2,100 and 3,000 m, often as an emergent tree among oak, rhododendron and laurel.

It is a tree reaching 20–30 m with a stout trunk, grey bark and stout, often pubescent young twigs marked by ringed stipular scars. The leaves are alternate, elliptic to obovate, entire, glaucous and finely hairy beneath. The large, solitary, precocious flowers are among the most spectacular of the genus, cup-and-saucer in form, 15–25 cm across, with numerous tepals ranging from deep rose-pink to white; as in all Magnoliaceae the receptacle bears spirally arranged stamens below an elongate gynoecium of free carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of follicles forming a cylindrical, often twisted etaerio that splits to expose red, arillate seeds suspended on slender funicular threads.

Magnolia campbellii belongs to subgenus Yulania, the precocious-flowering Asian magnolias, and its early bloom on bare branches is a defining feature exploited in horticulture, where numerous selections and hybrids exist. Though widely grown, wild populations face pressure from logging and forest conversion, and the species is regarded as of conservation interest across parts of its native range, making intact mid-montane Himalayan forest important to its persistence.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Hunt (ed.): Magnolias and their Allies

Magnoliaceae

Magnolia hodgsonii

by G & P Jürgens

(Hook.f. & Thomson) H.Keng

Sikkim 2006 492 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Chaana 1700m, May

Description

Magnolia hodgsonii is an evergreen tree of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, distributed through northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan, southern China (Yunnan, Xizang), Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and into Malesia. It is a component of warm, humid subtropical to lower montane broad-leaved evergreen forest, favouring sheltered valleys, ravines and moist hill slopes on deep soils. It generally occurs from the lowlands to around 1,800 m; the tree photographed at Chaana in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal at 1,700 m in May exemplifies its upper subtropical forest habitat, flowering at the close of the dry season.

The plant is a medium-sized to large tree with smooth grey bark and stout twigs. The leaves are large, alternate, often clustered toward the branch tips, obovate to elliptic-oblong, coriaceous, glabrous and entire, with a prominent venation. The solitary, terminal flowers are large and fragrant, with creamy-white to pale yellow tepals arranged in several whorls; the numerous stamens and the apocarpous gynoecium of free carpels are borne on an elongate floral axis. The fruit is an ellipsoid to ovoid aggregate of follicles which split to expose seeds enveloped in a fleshy red to orange sarcotesta, dispersed by birds.

The species, with basionym attributed to Hooker f. and Thomson and recombined by H. Keng, was formerly placed in the segregate genus Talauma, now subsumed within a broadly circumscribed Magnolia. As an archaic, beetle-pollinated member of one of the most basal angiosperm lineages, it is of considerable evolutionary interest. Valued for its timber and ornamental flowers, it is subject to selective logging and forest clearance, and warm-temperate populations on the forest fringe merit monitoring where habitat loss is ongoing.

Author: (Hook.f. & Thomson) H.Keng · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Figlar & Nooteboom: Magnoliaceae notes

Berberidaceae

Mahonia napaulensis

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Nepal1992 158 P231 ergebnis
Nepal Yamphudin 1800m March 

Description

Mahonia napaulensis is a Himalayan evergreen shrub distributed from central Nepal eastward through northeast India, Bhutan, and Myanmar to southern China (Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou), with outlying populations recorded in northern Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. GBIF documents nearly 985 occurrences across its range. The species inhabits montane broadleaved and mixed forests, forest clearings, and rocky slopes at elevations of 1,100–2,800 m. Near Yamphudin in eastern Nepal at 1,800 m, it occurs in the understorey of mid-hill Quercus–Rhododendron forests, flowering conspicuously in the dry pre-monsoon months of February to April.
Mahonia napaulensis is an erect, often sparsely branched shrub growing to 2–5 m tall. The leaves are imparipinnately compound, 25–45 cm long, with 7–15 pairs of coriaceous, ovate-lanceolate leaflets that are spinose-serrate along the margins and glossy dark green above. The inflorescence consists of 5–12 fascicled racemes arising from the stem apex, each 12–25 cm long, bearing densely arranged yellow flowers. Individual flowers are trimerous with 6 sepals in two whorls, 6 petals, and 6 stamens with valvate dehiscence. The fruit is a globose berry, 7–10 mm in diameter, blue-black with a waxy bloom at maturity, containing 2–5 seeds.
Mahonia napaulensis is closely allied to M. acanthifolia, from which it is distinguished by its more numerous leaflet pairs and generally longer racemes. Some authorities have treated these taxa as conspecific, but molecular phylogenetic studies support their separation. The berries are consumed by birds, particularly bulbuls and laughingthrushes, which serve as the primary seed dispersers. The species is widely cultivated as an ornamental in temperate gardens worldwide, valued for its architectural foliage and fragrant winter flowers.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 6, Flora of Nepal Checklist, Adhikari et al.: Berberidaceae of Nepal (2010)

Asparagaceae

Maianthemum fuscum

by G & P Jürgens

(Wall.) LaFrankie

Sikkim 2006 229 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Ramman 2100m, May

Description

Maianthemum fuscum is a rhizomatous woodland herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent mountains of southwestern China, recorded by GBIF from China, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan and Vietnam across roughly 303 georeferenced occurrences. It inhabits cool, moist, shaded broadleaf and mixed forest, growing on humus-rich slopes, beneath rhododendron and oak canopy, and along streamsides in the temperate montane belt, generally between about 1,800 and 3,000 m. The photographed plant from Ramman in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal, India, at around 2,100 m in May is representative of its pre-monsoon flowering, the inflorescences appearing as the new leafy shoots unfurl on the forest floor.

The plant arises from a slender creeping rhizome bearing an erect, often arching aerial stem with several alternate, sessile to short-petioled leaves that are ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate and prominently parallel-veined. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme or narrow panicle of small flowers, each flower with a typically six-parted perianth of free or basally connate tepals that are dull purplish-brown to dark maroon, giving the species its epithet fuscum ("dusky"). There are six stamens and a superior ovary maturing into a small globose berry that ripens through mottled to red or purplish-black, containing few seeds and dispersed by birds.

Maianthemum fuscum was long placed in the genus Smilacina, and its transfer reflects the modern circumscription of Maianthemum to encompass the trimerous-flowered Asian "false Solomon's seals" alongside the dimerous North-temperate species; the family placement follows the broad Asparagaceae of APG, the group having previously been treated under Convallariaceae or Liliaceae. Within the Himalaya it is one of several closely related forest Maianthemum species whose vegetative similarity makes them dependent on floral and fruit characters for reliable identification. The species is locally common, not regarded as threatened, but like other shade-demanding rhizomatous herbs it is sensitive to canopy loss and forest disturbance.

Author: (Wall.) LaFrankie · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, LaFrankie's revision of Maianthemum (Smilacina) and the Convallariaceae