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Spring

Rosaceae

Rubus ellipticus

by GP Jürgens

Kupcsok

Nepal 1994 53 ergebnis
Ost-Nepal Bhalukhob 
1800m April

Description

Rubus ellipticus, the yellow Himalayan raspberry, is native to South and East Asia and has become one of the most notoriously invasive of all brambles, with 3973 GBIF occurrences spanning its native range in China (CN), Taiwan (TW), India (IN), Nepal (NP), Bhutan (BT), Sri Lanka (LK), Thailand (TH), Vietnam (VN), Myanmar (MM), the Philippines (PH), Pakistan (PK) and Afghanistan (AF), together with extensive introduced populations in the United States (US, notably Hawaii), Australia (AU), New Zealand (NZ), Malawi (MW), Tanzania (TZ), Ecuador (EC), Costa Rica (CR) and Jamaica (JM). It forms dense thickets in forest margins, clearings, scrub, roadsides and disturbed ground from the lowlands to the lower montane zone. The figured plant was recorded at Bhalukhob in East-Nepal at about 1800 m in April.

It is a robust, scrambling, perennial shrub with biennial canes armed with stout recurved prickles and clothed in dense reddish bristly hairs. The leaves are pinnately trifoliolate, the leaflets elliptic to obovate, finely serrate, dark green and rugose above and densely greyish-tomentose beneath. The flowers are borne in dense terminal and axillary clusters, white, with five sepals and petals and numerous stamens. The aggregate fruit is a juicy, golden-yellow edible raspberry composed of numerous drupelets separating from the receptacle.

Rubus ellipticus belongs to the taxonomically complex subgenus Idaeobatus. Its palatable fruit and prolific seed production, aided by bird dispersal and vigorous vegetative spread, underpin its status as a serious invasive listed among the world's worst invasive species, displacing native vegetation in tropical island and montane ecosystems.

Author: Kupcsok · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Flora of British India, IUCN Global Invasive Species Database, Monograph of the genus Rubus

Rosaceae

Rubus fockeanus

by G & P Jürgens

Kurz

BhutanPG2011 91
Bhutan Chogcham, 3100m June

Sikkim 2006 162 ergebnis
India West-Bengal, Molley 3000m, May

Description

Rubus fockeanus is a diminutive, creeping bramble of the high mountains of Asia, ranging through China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan and Myanmar, with GBIF recording over 400 occurrences; the records from Great Britain and New Zealand represent introduced or cultivated material. It grows in damp alpine and subalpine meadows, mossy forest floors, streamsides and the margins of rhododendron scrub, broadly between 2500 and 4000 m. The two illustrated gatherings, from Chogcham in Bhutan at 3100 m in June and from Molley in West Bengal at 3000 m in May, are typical of its preference for cool, moist, sheltered montane ground.

Unlike the woody, arching brambles of the lowlands, R. fockeanus is a slender, herbaceous to subherbaceous perennial creeper, rooting at the nodes of prostrate stems to form mats, and unarmed or nearly so. The leaves are ternate (trifoliolate), with rounded, crenate-toothed leaflets. The flowers are small, solitary and white, with five petals, five sepals and numerous stamens surrounding an apocarpous gynoecium. The fruit is a small, red, aggregate drupelet cluster (an etaerio of drupelets) typical of Rubus, edible and dispersed by birds and mammals.

Within the immense and taxonomically intricate genus Rubus, this species belongs to a group of small, herbaceous, creeping alpine brambles (allied to subgenus Chamaebatus / Cylactis), distinguished by their ternate leaves, solitary flowers and matted habit. Widespread and locally common across the high Asian mountains, it is of no conservation concern and contributes to alpine ground cover and to the diet of montane fauna.

Author: Kurz · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Rubus monographic treatments

Rosaceae

Rubus macilentus

by GP Jürgens

P.J.Müll. & Timb.-Lagr.

Bh2008 39 G69
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m April
Bh2008 40 G68
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m April

Description

Rubus macilentus is a Himalayan bramble distributed across China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bhutan, with about 341 GBIF occurrences (a few extralimital records reflecting cultivation or misattribution). It occupies forest margins, scrub, clearings and thickets along the temperate Himalaya, generally between roughly 2000 and 3500 m. The plant photographed at Dochu-La in western Bhutan at about 3000 m in April represents its typical setting in moist montane forest and shrubbery, flowering in spring when the white blossoms appear among the arching, prickly canes.

The species is a scrambling deciduous shrub with slender, often slightly glaucous biennial canes bearing scattered recurved prickles. The leaves are pinnately or ternately compound with three to five ovate, doubly serrate leaflets that are green above and paler, often thinly tomentose, beneath, the petioles and rachis armed with small prickles. The flowers are borne singly or in few-flowered cymes, with five spreading white petals, a tomentose calyx of reflexed sepals, and numerous stamens surrounding many carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of drupelets, ripening red to dark purple-black and detaching from the dry receptacle.

Rubus is a taxonomically complex, near-cosmopolitan genus in which apomixis, polyploidy and hybridisation generate many microspecies; the Himalayan brambles, including R. macilentus, are correspondingly difficult to delimit. The fleshy aggregate fruits are dispersed by birds and mammals, and the species contributes to successional scrub on disturbed and forest-edge ground. With a wide Himalayan distribution and ready colonisation of cleared habitats it is of least concern, and like other brambles it can play a pioneering role in regenerating montane vegetation.

Author: P.J.Müll. & Timb.-Lagr. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Kalkman's treatment of Rosaceae

Rosaceae

Rubus rosifolius

by GP Jürgens

Sm.

Nepal 97 334 G661
Nepal Arun-Valley 1800m May
Nepal 97 333 G660
Nepal Arun-Valley 1800m May

Description

Rubus rosifolius is a widespread, semi-scandent bramble native to Asia and now pantropically naturalised, the very large GBIF dataset of nearly fifteen thousand records spanning Australia, Brazil, Taiwan, the United States, Réunion, China, Indonesia, Madagascar, South Africa and many other territories. Within its native Himalayan range it occupies forest margins, clearings, streamsides, hedgerows and disturbed slopes in the subtropical to warm-temperate belt. The illustrated plant from the Arun valley of eastern Nepal at about 1800 m, flowering in May, reflects its mid-elevation habitat preference; elsewhere its colonising vigour has made it an aggressive invader of disturbed and montane ground.

The species is a perennial shrub with erect to arching, slender stems armed with fine, often recurved prickles and bearing a sparse glandular-pubescent indumentum. The leaves are imparipinnate, the leaflets ovate-lanceolate, sharply doubly serrate and rugose, recalling those of a rose, whence the epithet rosifolius. The flowers are usually solitary or few, comparatively large, with five spreading white petals, numerous stamens and an enlarged conical receptacle. The fruit is an ellipsoid to ovoid aggregate of numerous small drupelets, ripening bright red, edible but rather insipid.

Rubus rosifolius is an accepted species within the vast genus Rubus (Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae), a complex group renowned for apomixis, polyploidy and hybridisation. Its prickly arching canes and prolific seed make it a notable transformer weed in many tropical highlands, and a double-flowered cultivar ('Coronarius') is grown ornamentally. In its native Himalaya it is common and of least concern, valued locally as a wild edible.

Author: Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Focke Species Ruborum monograph

Sabiaceae

Sabia campanulata

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Nepal 97 268 P552
Nepal Bagong-Khola 2700m April

Description

Sabia campanulata is a climbing shrub of the Himalaya and southwestern China, recorded from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Pakistan and Japan, with around 1019 georeferenced occurrences in GBIF. It grows in temperate broad-leaved and mixed forests, thicket margins, forest edges and along ravines, scrambling over shrubs and small trees on humid montane slopes. The photographed plant from the Bagong Khola in Nepal at 2700 m in April is typical of these cool mid-montane forest habitats, where the species flowers in spring as new growth emerges along streamside woodland.

It is a deciduous woody climber or scandent shrub with slender, somewhat flexuous branches. The leaves are alternate, simple, ovate to elliptic-oblong, entire-margined, acuminate at the apex and with a thin to slightly leathery texture, the venation pinnate and prominent beneath. The flowers are small and borne solitary or in few-flowered axillary clusters; the corolla is campanulate, as the epithet indicates, with five greenish to dull purple or yellowish petals, five sepals, and five stamens opposite the petals, set on a small fleshy disc. The fruit is a flattened, reniform to obovoid drupe, paired or solitary, ripening blue to bluish-black, with a single curved seed and a reticulate endocarp.

The genus Sabia gives its name to the small family Sabiaceae, an isolated lineage of the basal eudicots (Proteales sensu lato in some treatments) with no close affinities among other Himalayan woody climbers. Sabia campanulata is distinguished within the genus by its relatively large bell-shaped flowers. Its drupaceous, bird-dispersed fruits aid seed dispersal through forest. Locally distributed but not rare across its montane range, it is not regarded as threatened, though dependent on intact temperate forest.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of the Genus Sabia (Sabiaceae)

Salicaceae

Salix salwinensis

by GP Jürgens

Hand.-Mazz. ex Enander

Bhutan2014 451
Bhutan Phobjika 2810m, May

Description

Salix salwinensis is a Sino-Himalayan willow distributed from SW China (the Salween, Mekong and upper Yangtze drainages, whence the epithet) through NE India, Nepal and Bhutan, GBIF recording some 92 occurrences across the eastern Himalaya and southwestern China. It is a shrub or small tree of high-montane and subalpine habitats, growing along streamsides, in damp thickets, at forest margins and on open slopes. The photographed plant from Phobjika in Bhutan at 2,810 m (May) reflects its occurrence in the cool temperate to subalpine belt, where willows form a conspicuous component of riparian and meadow-edge vegetation.

It is a deciduous, dioecious shrub or small tree with reddish-brown to purplish, glabrous young twigs. The leaves are oblong to oblanceolate or elliptic, acute, often glaucous beneath, with finely serrate or entire margins and a short petiole, the young foliage sometimes silky. As in all willows the flowers are reduced and borne in erect catkins appearing with or before the leaves; each flower is subtended by a hairy bract and lacks a perianth, the male with two stamens and the female with a single pistil bearing a basal nectary. The fruit is a small, two-valved capsule releasing numerous comose, wind-dispersed seeds.

Salix is a large and taxonomically intricate genus in which hybridisation and clinal variation blur species boundaries; the Himalayan willows in particular require careful study of catkin and leaf characters for identification. The dioecious, catkin-bearing, anemophilous and partly entomophilous flowers, the comose seeds and the capacity for vegetative regeneration are classic adaptations of the genus to dynamic, disturbed riparian habitats. The species is not considered threatened across its montane range.

Author: Hand.-Mazz. ex Enander · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 4, Skvortsov: Willows of Russia and Adjacent Countries

Salicaceae

Salix stomatophora

by GP Jürgens

Flod.

Bhutan2014 442
Bhutan Yatong-La 3200m, May
Bhutan2014 443
Bhutan Yatong-La 3200m, May

Description

Salix stomatophora is a Himalayan willow distributed across the high mountains of southwestern China (Xizang), Bhutan, Nepal and northern India, with GBIF recording roughly eighty occurrences from this region (records from the United States and Mexico reflect herbarium and cultivated material). It is a plant of the upper-montane to subalpine zone, occupying streamsides, moist forest margins, thickets and open slopes, generally between about 2800 and 3800 m. The individual photographed at Yatong-La in Bhutan at 3200 m, catkins emerging in May, is typical of these cool, humid Bhutan Himalayan habitats, where willows flush early in spring as snowmelt swells the mountain streams along which the species characteristically grows.

The plant is a shrub or small tree with slender, often reddish-brown to purplish young twigs that are glabrous or nearly so. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate to elliptic, acuminate, finely glandular-serrate at the margin, green above and conspicuously glaucous beneath, with prominent stomatal banding on the lower surface that gives the species its epithet (stomatophora, "bearing stomata"). As in all willows the plant is dioecious, the flowers borne in erect catkins appearing with or slightly before the leaves; each tiny flower subtended by a hairy bract, the staminate flowers with two stamens, the pistillate with a single ovary bearing a short style and notched stigmas. The fruit is a small, glabrous, two-valved capsule releasing minute, silky-tufted, wind-dispersed seeds.

Salix is a large, taxonomically difficult genus, and the Sino-Himalayan region harbours a rich assemblage of montane and alpine species whose delimitation rests heavily on leaf indumentum, stipule form and catkin and capsule characters. The pronounced glaucous, stomatiferous lower leaf surface of S. stomatophora is a key diagnostic trait. Note that this Himalayaflora page links the synonym S. bhutanensis, underscoring the nomenclatural fluidity common in the genus. Ecologically the species contributes to streambank stabilisation and provides early-season forage and pollen for emerging insects in high-altitude communities. With a wide if scattered Himalayan range it is not regarded as threatened, though localised populations depend on the integrity of subalpine riparian corridors.

Author: Flod. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 4, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1 Part 1, Flora of Nepal, Salix (Salicaceae) of the Sino-Himalaya (K.S. Hao; A.K. Skvortsov, Willows of the World)

Salicaceae

Salix thomsoniana

by GP Jürgens

Andersson

Bh2008 587 G879
Bhutan Chele-La 3900m April
Bhutan2014 932
Bhutan Chele-La 4000m, May

Description

Salix thomsoniana is a dwarf, high-alpine willow of the family Salicaceae, endemic to the Himalaya. GBIF records, though few in number, are restricted to India, Nepal and Bhutan, reflecting both its genuine narrow range and the limited collecting of prostrate willows at extreme elevations. It is a plant of the upper alpine zone, growing among rocks, on stony slopes, moraine and the margins of alpine turf, typically between about 3,800 and 4,500 m. The collections illustrated from the Chele-La pass in western Bhutan at 3,900–4,000 m in April and May capture the species at the very start of its short growing season, flowering as the snow melts.

Like many high-mountain willows it is a low, decumbent to prostrate shrublet with creeping, often partly buried woody stems and short ascending shoots. The leaves are small, elliptic to obovate, with entire or finely toothed margins, glabrescent above and somewhat paler beneath. As in all Salix, the plant is dioecious, the flowers reduced and aggregated into short, erect catkins that appear with or just before the leaves; each minute flower is subtended by a hairy bract, the staminate flowers with two stamens and the pistillate flowers reduced to a single gynoecium with a nectary. The fruit is a small capsule releasing numerous minute, plumed seeds dispersed by wind.

The alpine willows form a taxonomically intricate group in which species are separated on subtle characters of leaf shape, indumentum, catkin structure and bract coloration, and hybridisation further complicates delimitation. As a cushion-forming dwarf shrub of the high Himalaya, S. thomsoniana contributes to soil stabilisation and provides early-season forage and pollen in an otherwise sparse environment. Its restricted range and dependence on the narrow alpine belt make such species potentially vulnerable to upward shifts in vegetation zones driven by warming.

Author: Andersson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 4, Flora of Nepal, Skvortsov: Willows of the USSR and adjacent regions

Lamiaceae

Salvia plectranthoides

by GP Jürgens

Griff.

Bhutan2014 162
Bhutan Trashigang 2100m, May
Bhutan2014 163
Bhutan Trashigang 2100m, May

Description

Salvia plectranthoides Griff. is an Eastern Himalayan and Sino-Himalayan element distributed across southern China, Bhutan and northeastern India (gbif_countries: CN, BT, IN), with some 391 georeferenced occurrences recorded in GBIF. It occupies warm-temperate to subtropical montane habitats, favouring open forest margins, shrubby slopes, roadside banks and disturbed grassy ground between roughly 1500 and 2700 m. The photographed plant from Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 2100 m, flowering in May, typifies its preference for the mid-elevation broad-leaved forest belt of the eastern monsoon ranges, where humid summers and mild winters prevail.

It is an erect perennial herb arising from a woody rootstock, with quadrangular, often purple-tinged and retrorsely pubescent stems. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate with a cordate to truncate base, an acuminate apex and a crenate-serrate margin, the lamina rugose and pubescent on both surfaces. The inflorescence is a lax terminal panicle of verticillasters, each whorl 2–6-flowered. Flowers bear a campanulate, two-lipped calyx and a bilabiate corolla, pale violet to bluish-purple, the upper lip galeate and the lower lip three-lobed; the two fertile stamens display the characteristic Salvia lever mechanism. The fruit comprises four smooth ovoid nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Within the large genus Salvia (subfamily Nepetoideae), this species belongs to the East Asian assemblage and the specific epithet alludes to a superficial resemblance to Plectranthus. The staminal lever, a hallmark of the genus, facilitates precise pollen placement on visiting bees and contributes to floral isolation among congeners. It is not of conservation concern given its broad range and tolerance of disturbed habitats.

Author: Griff. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Lamiaceae), Flora of Bhutan, A Revision of Salvia (Lamiaceae) and allied genera

Araceae

Sauromatum diversifolium

by G & P Jürgens

(Wall. ex Schott) Cusimano & Hett.

Nepal 99 241 ergebnis
West-Nepal Tallekh 3000m, June
Nepal 2009 97 ergebnis
Nepal Helambu Samathang 2410, May

Description

Sauromatum diversifolium is a tuberous aroid of the Himalaya and adjacent uplands, distributed through India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand, with around 146 recorded occurrences. It grows in moist temperate forest, on shaded banks, in open grassy slopes and among rocks where seasonal soil moisture is reliable, emerging with the onset of the warm season and dying back to its tuber during the dry winter. In Nepal it occupies the middle to upper montane zone, as shown by collections from Tallekh in the west at about 3000 m in June and from Samathang in the Helambu region at 2410 m in May, the latter dates coinciding with its early-season flowering.

The plant arises from a subglobose, depressed tuber and typically produces a single long-petiolate leaf whose blade is deeply pedately divided into several lanceolate to elliptic segments, the lobes acuminate and the petiole often mottled. The inflorescence is a typical aroid spadix subtended by a spathe, the spathe tube convolute and the limb expanded, lanceolate and often dull purple or marked within. The spadix bears a sterile terminal appendix above separated zones of female and male flowers, and emits a faint odour at anthesis to attract small dipteran and beetle pollinators. The fruiting head is a cluster of small berries.

The species was transferred to Sauromatum by Cusimano and Hettich on molecular and morphological evidence that united the former Typhonium diversifolium with the saururoid lineage. The genus is protogynous and largely sapromyophilous, with thermogenic spadices that volatilise scent to lure pollinators into the floral chamber. Widespread and locally frequent in suitable montane habitat, S. diversifolium is not regarded as threatened, though like many tuberous aroids it is sensitive to grazing pressure and the loss of forest-edge microhabitats.

Author: (Wall. ex Schott) Cusimano & Hett. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 23, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Cusimano et al. molecular phylogeny of Areae (Araceae)