Tag:

Subalpine (2500-3500 m)

Asteraceae

Himalaiella auriculata

by GP Jürgens

(DC.) Raab-Straube

Sikkim2003 103 P141
Sikkim below Dzongri 3900m 08.2003
Sikkim2003 408 P567
Sikkim below Dzongri 3900m 08.2003
Bhutan2012 493
Bhutan Pele-La 3000m, September

Description

Himalaiella auriculata is a perennial thistle-like composite of the temperate to subalpine zone of the eastern Himalaya, native to India, Nepal and China, with around 27 documented occurrences. It grows on open slopes, forest clearings, meadow margins and disturbed ground, broadly between about 3000 and 4000 m. The photographed plants were recorded below Dzongri in Sikkim at 3900 m in August and at the Pele-La in Bhutan at 3000 m in September, flowering in the late-monsoon and early-autumn period typical of the genus in the region. The name supplied, Himalaiella auriculata, is recorded by GBIF as a synonym, with the same epithet treated as the accepted name; the species was long placed in Saussurea as S. auriculata.

The species is an erect herb with a leafy, often winged stem arising from a perennial rootstock, the herbage thinly cobwebby-arachnoid. The leaves are elliptic to lanceolate, the basal narrowed to a petiole and the cauline sessile and conspicuously auriculate-clasping at the base, the auricles giving the epithet. The capitula are discoid, solitary or few in a loose terminal cluster, with an ovoid to campanulate involucre of imbricate, often purple-tipped phyllaries; the florets are all tubular and purple to mauve. The fruit is a glabrous cypsela bearing a double pappus, the inner bristles plumose, as is diagnostic of the alliance.

Himalaiella is a small Sino-Himalayan genus segregated from Saussurea (tribe Cardueae) on molecular and morphological grounds, characterised by the auriculate, decurrent leaves and feathery inner pappus. Restricted in range and represented by relatively few collections, it is a regional endemic of the eastern Himalaya whose populations warrant monitoring, though it has not been formally assessed.

Author: (DC.) Raab-Straube · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Saussurea monograph (Lipschitz)

Hydrangeaceae

Hydrangea heteromalla

by G & P Jürgens

D. Don

Sikkim2011 179
Sikkim Lachen 2760m, June

Description

Hydrangea heteromalla is a deciduous shrub or small tree of the Himalaya and central China, with GBIF returning over 1600 occurrences spanning its native range in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar as well as numerous cultivated and naturalised records from Europe and North America. In the wild it grows in cool temperate forest, on open slopes, forest margins, ravines and shrubberies, typically between about 1500 and 3500 m. The plant photographed near Lachen in northern Sikkim at about 2760 m, flowering in June, occupies the moist temperate montane belt where the species is a frequent understorey and edge shrub.

The plant has stout, spreading branches with peeling bark and opposite leaves that are ovate to elliptic, acuminate, finely serrate, and characteristically discolorous, dark green above and densely pale-tomentose to whitish beneath, the indumentum giving the epithet heteromalla. The inflorescence is a broad, flat-topped to slightly domed corymb bearing many small fertile flowers surrounded at the margin by larger, showy, sterile ray-florets with four enlarged white sepaloid segments. The fertile flowers are small, white, with five petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a small ribbed capsule opening at the apex to release numerous tiny seeds.

Hydrangea heteromalla is a variable and widespread species, the subject of much horticultural selection and the source of cultivated forms grown for their lacecap inflorescences, which explains its scattered records across temperate gardens worldwide. Within Hydrangea section Hydrangea it represents the principal Himalayan-Chinese montane lineage. Ecologically the marginal sterile florets serve to attract pollinators to the inconspicuous fertile flowers. The species is common and not threatened, and its wide ecological amplitude and ornamental value have ensured both its persistence in the wild and its global cultivation.

Author: D. Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, McClintock "A Monograph of the Genus Hydrangea", Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Hydrangeaceae

Hydrangea stylosa

by G & P Jürgens

Hook. f. & Thomson

Bhutan2012 692
Bhutan Galephu, 850m September
Bh09 216 G363
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m June
Bh09 217 P364 2
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m June

Description

Hydrangea stylosa Hook.f. & Thomson is a Sino-Himalayan shrub recorded by GBIF from China, Bhutan, India, Vietnam and Japan, with cultivated occurrences from Canada and New Zealand, totalling about 85 records. It occupies a broad altitudinal range in moist broad-leaved and mixed forest, thickets and forest margins, on shaded slopes and along ravines. The Bhutanese material spans this amplitude strikingly, with collections from Galephu at 850 m in September and from the Dochu-La at 3000 m in June, showing occurrence from low submontane forest up into the cool temperate zone.

It is a deciduous shrub with terete branches, the young growth often pubescent and the bark exfoliating on older stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, with a serrate margin, an acuminate apex and pinnate venation, pilose along the veins beneath. The inflorescence is a terminal corymbose cyme bearing two kinds of flowers: numerous small fertile flowers with minute petals, and a marginal ring of showy sterile flowers whose enlarged, petaloid white to pinkish sepals attract pollinators. The fertile flowers are notable for their elongate, persistent styles, emphasised by the epithet stylosa; the fruit is a small ribbed capsule opening between the styles.

Within Hydrangea, H. stylosa belongs to the lacecap-type species, in which marginal sterile flowers advertise the fertile centre to insects. Its distribution forms part of the eastern Himalayan to Sino-Japanese floristic continuum, and the species is of horticultural interest, accounting for the cultivated records beyond its native range. As a forest understorey shrub it depends on humid montane woodland.

Author: Hook. f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of China Vol. 8, McClintock monograph of the genus Hydrangea, Flora of Nepal

Fabaceae

Hylodesmum laxum

by G & P Jürgens

(DC.) H.Ohashi & R.R.Mill

Bhutan2012 572
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September
Bhutan2012 573
Bhutan Wangdi 2700m, September

Description

Hylodesmum laxum is a widely distributed forest herb of warm-temperate and subtropical Asia, recorded from Japan, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan, with some 740 georeferenced occurrences. It is a characteristic understorey element of moist broad-leaved and mixed evergreen forests, favouring shaded slopes, forest margins and streamside thickets on humus-rich soils. In the eastern Himalaya it ascends to the middle montane belt, as illustrated by the material gathered near Wangdi in central Bhutan at about 2700 m in September, when it flowers and fruits in the post-monsoon season.

The species is a perennial herb with erect or ascending, slender, ridged stems arising from a woody rootstock. The leaves are pinnately trifoliolate and crowded toward the stem apex, the terminal leaflet rhombic-ovate to elliptic and larger than the lateral ones, acuminate and entire, thinly membranous and sparsely appressed-pubescent. The inflorescence is a lax, elongate terminal raceme or panicle bearing small papilionaceous flowers with a pink to pale purple corolla, the standard obovate and the keel obtuse. The fruit is a flattened, stipitate loment constricted between the segments, the articles covered with uncinate hairs that promote epizoochorous dispersal.

The genus Hylodesmum was segregated from Desmodium by Ohashi and Mill to accommodate species with stipitate, deeply constricted loments and a forest-herb habit, and H. laxum is among its more widespread members. Its very broad transcontinental range, spanning the Himalaya to the western Pacific, points to effective long-distance dispersal by the hooked fruit articles. Locally common and of no immediate conservation concern, its populations nonetheless remain dependent on intact forest cover, and the species is a useful indicator of relatively undisturbed montane woodland.

Author: (DC.) H.Ohashi & R.R.Mill · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 10, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Ohashi & Mill revision of Hylodesmum (Desmodium group)

Hypericaceae

Hypericum choisianum

by GP Jürgens

Wall. ex N.Robson

BhutanPG2011 824 01 01
Bhutan Luksor, 2800m July
BhutanPG2011 695 01 01
Bhutan Luksor, 2800m July
Sikkim2003 378 P531
Sikkim Tista valley 3400m August

Description

Hypericum choisianum (correctly H. choisyanum) is a handsome shrubby St John's wort of the Himalaya, distributed from Nepal eastward through India, Sikkim, Bhutan and into southwestern China, with outlying records from Myanmar; cultivated and naturalised material accounts for occurrences in Britain, Ireland and Vietnam, contributing to a GBIF total of over two hundred records. It inhabits open temperate forest, forest margins, scrub, banks and rocky slopes, typically between about 1800 and 3600 m. The plants documented from Luksor in Bhutan at 2800 m in July and from the Tista valley in Sikkim at 3400 m in August reflect both its broad elevational tolerance and its mid-to-late summer flowering, when the large golden blooms are conspicuous along forest edges and clearings throughout the monsoon season.

The plant is an evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub of one to two metres, with arching reddish branches and opposite, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, sessile or clasping leaves that are slightly glaucous beneath and dotted with translucent glands. The flowers are large and showy, solitary or few in terminal cymes, with five broad, bright golden-yellow petals that are often somewhat incurved to give a cupped, almost globose bloom. The numerous stamens are united into five fascicles, and the styles are five, free and spreading. The superior, five-locular ovary develops into a leathery to slightly fleshy capsule that dehisces to release many small seeds; the glandular tissue throughout the plant contains the characteristic hypericin and related compounds.

Hypericum, here placed in the Hypericaceae (sometimes treated within a broadly defined Clusiaceae), reaches notable diversity in the Sino-Himalaya, and H. choisyanum belongs to the large-flowered shrubby section Ascyreia, several members of which are valued as garden ornamentals for their bold yellow flowers and hardiness. Described by N. Robson, who monographed the genus, it is part of a closely allied complex of Himalayan shrubs distinguished by subtle differences in leaf shape, stamen fascicles and capsule form. As a common, ecologically adaptable species spanning a wide range and elevation, it is of no conservation concern, and its frequency along disturbed forest margins reflects considerable tolerance of moderate human modification.

Author: Wall. ex N.Robson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1 Part 2, Flora of Nepal, Studies in the genus Hypericum (Norman Robson, Bulletin of the British Museum)

Acanthaceae

Hypoestes triflora 

by GP Jürgens

(Forssk.) Roem. & Schult.

Nepal 99 997 ergebnis
West-Nepal Juphal 2600m, July

Description

Hypoestes triflora is a broadly distributed paleotropical herb ranging from tropical and southern Africa across the Arabian Peninsula to the Himalaya and southwestern China; its roughly 2040 GBIF records show a strong African centre in South Africa, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Cameroon and the Congo basin, with Asian outliers in India, Nepal and China. In the western Himalaya it reaches the mid-montane zone, as in the collection near Juphal in West Nepal at about 2600 m in July, flowering during the monsoon. It grows in shaded, moist situations on forest floors and streambanks, as a soft-stemmed understorey herb of seasonally wet temperate and subtropical woodland.

The plant is an erect to straggling herb with four-angled, swollen-noded stems rooting at the lower joints. The opposite leaves are ovate to lanceolate, thin-textured and acuminate, with entire to obscurely toothed margins. The flowers are grouped in small axillary clusters, each subtended by bracts and typically containing three flowers, as the epithet records. The bilabiate corolla is pale pink to lilac or purplish, with a slender tube and deeply two-lipped limb. The fruit is an explosively dehiscent club-shaped capsule that ejects its seeds from retinacula-bearing placentae.

Within Acanthaceae, Hypoestes is allied to Justicia and recognised by its bracteate flower clusters and two-locular capsules; H. triflora is among the most wide-ranging species, its disjunct African-Asian distribution reflecting historical connections across the paleotropics. As a common woodland herb spanning many countries, it is of no particular conservation concern.

Author: (Forssk.) Roem. & Schult. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Tropical East Africa (Acanthaceae)

Hypoxidaceae

Hypoxis aurea

by GP Jürgens

Lour.

Nepal 97 491 P962
Nepal Num 1650m May
Nepal 99 198 ergebnis
West-Nepal Lara-Lake 2900m, June

Description

Hypoxis aurea Lour. is a small cormous geophyte of the Hypoxidaceae with a wide Asian and Pacific distribution, recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and China through Taiwan, Japan and Korea, across Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines) to New Guinea, with around 1,240 georeferenced occurrences. It grows in open, well-lit grassy habitats: hill grassland, open pine and oak woodland, pasture, terrace banks and disturbed slopes, often in seasonally moist soils. The photographed plants from Num at about 1,650 m and from the Lara-Lake area of West Nepal at about 2,900 m, flowering in May and June, show its broad altitudinal span from subtropical foothills to the lower-temperate zone in the Himalaya.

It is a perennial herb arising from a small ovoid to tuberous corm. The leaves are all basal, several, narrowly linear and grass-like, often keeled and clothed (especially toward the base) in long soft hairs. The flowers are borne singly or few together on slender scapes shorter than or about equalling the leaves; each has six spreading yellow tepals, golden within and frequently greenish and hairy on the outer surface, with six stamens and an inferior, hairy ovary. The fruit is a small capsule opening to release numerous tiny black, often muricate seeds.

Hypoxis is a chiefly tropical and warm-temperate genus of grassland geophytes, and its members are well adapted to fire and seasonal drought through the perennating corm, which resprouts after burning or dry-season dormancy. The yellow, pollen-rich, nectarless flowers attract pollen-gathering insects. Widely distributed and frequently associated with grazed and disturbed grassland, H. aurea is common across its range and not considered threatened.

Author: Lour. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Nordal: Hypoxidaceae (in Kubitzki, 1998)

Aquifoliaceae

Ilex dipyrena

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bh2008 420 P656
Bhutan Phobjika, 3100m April

Description

Ilex dipyrena, the Himalayan holly, is an evergreen tree or large shrub distributed along the Himalaya from Pakistan and northern India through Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan into southern China (Yunnan, Xizang) and Myanmar. It is a characteristic constituent of cool temperate broad-leaved and mixed conifer forest, growing on shaded slopes, ridges and forest margins. It occurs mainly between about 1,800 and 3,300 m; the plant recorded in the Phobjikha valley of Bhutan at 3,100 m in April lies in the upper part of this band, within the moist temperate forest belt where it forms part of the evergreen understorey.

The plant is a small to medium-sized tree with greyish bark and glabrous twigs. The leaves are alternate, leathery and glossy dark green, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, with a spinose-dentate margin bearing rigid marginal teeth on vigorous shoots, the teeth often reduced on older growth. The plant is dioecious, with small greenish-white, four-merous flowers clustered in the leaf axils. The fruit is a globose drupe ripening dull red, containing typically two pyrenes, a feature reflected in the epithet dipyrena, distinguishing it from the four- to five-seeded common holly.

Ilex is a large, near-cosmopolitan genus and the sole member of its family. Ilex dipyrena, described by Wallich, is the principal native holly of the Himalaya and a long-cultivated ornamental and parent of garden hybrids. Its evergreen, drupe-bearing habit provides food for birds, which disperse the seeds, and it contributes to the structure of temperate Himalayan forest. The species is widespread and common, and is not considered to be of conservation concern.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Loizeau et al.: Ilex phylogeny

Schisandraceae

Illicium griffithii

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2012 346
Bhutan Dochu-La 3000m, September

Description

Illicium griffithii Hook.f. & Thomson is an aromatic evergreen tree or shrub of the eastern Himalaya and montane Southeast Asia. GBIF records it from Bhutan, NE India, China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia (about 220 occurrences), a distribution centred on the wet temperate to subtropical forests of the eastern Sino-Himalaya. It grows in cool, humid, mossy broad-leaved and mixed conifer forest, often as an understorey component on damp slopes and ridges, typically between roughly 1,800 and 3,000 m; the illustrated plant is from Bhutan at Dochu-La, 3,000 m, in September, near the upper limit of its range.

The plant is a small to medium-sized tree with smooth bark and aromatic tissues. The leaves are alternate but crowded toward the branch tips in pseudowhorls, simple, entire, elliptic to oblanceolate, leathery, glabrous and gland-dotted, exuding an anise-like scent when crushed. The flowers are solitary and axillary, with numerous spirally arranged perianth segments grading from sepaloid to petaloid, pinkish to dark red, the stamens and free carpels also numerous in the manner of the basal angiosperms. The fruit is the characteristic star-shaped aggregate of (usually) 8–13 woody follicles arranged in a single whorl, each follicle opening to release a single glossy seed.

Illicium (Schisandraceae, formerly Illiciaceae) belongs to the basal angiosperm order Austrobaileyales. Like its relatives the seeds and fruit contain toxic sesquiterpene lactones (anisatin-type), and the star anise of this species is harvested locally for incense, flavouring and medicine, demanding care given its toxicity. The species is widespread within suitable montane forest and is not currently regarded as threatened.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Smith: A Taxonomic Review of Illicium (Sargentia)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens arguta

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

Bhutan2012 329
Bhutan Dochu-La 3200m, September
Bhutan2012 330
Bhutan Dochu-La 3200m, September

Description

Impatiens arguta is a Sino-Himalayan balsam distributed from the central and eastern Himalaya through Myanmar into south-western China; GBIF records around 934 occurrences across China, India, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal. It is a plant of cool, humid temperate forest, growing on shaded moist banks, stream sides, forest margins and clearings, often in the broadleaved and mixed conifer belt. The image from Dochu-La in Bhutan at about 3200 m in September shows it flowering at a misty high pass late in the monsoon season, when temperate balsams reach their flowering peak in the abundant moisture and dappled shade of these slopes.

It is an erect, succulent perennial herb with stout, translucent, glabrous stems swollen at the nodes. The leaves are alternate or subopposite, ovate to lanceolate, with a sharply toothed (arguta, sharp-toothed) margin, an acuminate apex and a petiole sometimes bearing small glands. Flowers are borne singly or few together in the leaf axils on slender pedicels, zygomorphic and showy, typically purple to violet or pinkish; the lower sepal is boat-shaped and prolonged into a slender incurved spur, and the lateral united petals are two-lobed. The fruit is a fleshy, club-shaped capsule that dehisces explosively, scattering the seeds by elastic recoil of the valves.

The genus Impatiens is exceptionally species-rich and rapidly diversifying in the Himalaya, where many narrowly endemic taxa replace one another along altitudinal and longitudinal gradients. The explosive ballistic seed dispersal and nectar-spurred, insect-pollinated flowers of I. arguta are characteristic of the family. The species is widespread and not of conservation concern, but as a moisture-demanding forest herb it depends on the intact humid temperate woodlands of the eastern Himalaya.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Balsaminaceae), Grey-Wilson monograph of Impatiens