Tag:

Subalpine (2500-3500 m)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens cymbifera

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f.

Nepal 95 205 P344 ergebnis
Nepal Cluning-Khola 2900m October

Description

Impatiens cymbifera Hook.f. is a Sino-Himalayan balsam distributed across Nepal, China, India, Bhutan and Myanmar (NP, CN, IN, BT, MM), with GBIF recording about 103 occurrences. It is a plant of cool, humid montane forest, favouring shaded streamsides, seepage slopes, moist rock faces and path margins. The material photographed at the Cluning-Khola in Nepal at 2900 m in October reflects its autumn flowering in the temperate forest belt, where late-monsoon moisture sustains its succulent growth and prolongs anthesis into the post-monsoon season.

It is an erect, succulent annual with translucent, often reddish, watery stems swollen at the nodes and rooting below. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic with a serrate margin bearing small stipitate glands at the base, and an acuminate apex. The flowers are borne singly or few in the leaf axils on slender pedicels, the corolla zygomorphic; the lower sepal is conspicuously enlarged into a boat-shaped (cymbiform, hence the epithet) saccate body abruptly contracted into an incurved spur, while the lateral united petals form two-lobed wings. The capsule is the characteristic clavate, explosively dehiscent fruit of the genus, scattering seeds by elastic recoil of the valves.

Within the large and intricate genus Impatiens, a centre of diversity in the Sino-Himalayan region, I. cymbifera belongs to the forest-dwelling annuals with strongly saccate lower sepals. Its flowers are pollinated by long-tongued insects, and explosive ballistic seed dispersal aids colonisation of moist disturbed ground. As a moisture-demanding annual it is tied to intact montane forest hydrology, and such balsams indicate undisturbed humid forest.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of China Vol. 12, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Grey-Wilson monograph and Sino-Himalayan Impatiens studies

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens devendrae

by G & P Jürgens

Pusalkar

Garw 2005 73 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal Valley of flowers 3100m, September

Description

Impatiens devendrae is a narrowly distributed balsam of the western Himalaya, described from the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand in India. The photographed plant comes from the celebrated Valley of Flowers at about 3,100 m, recorded in September during the late-monsoon flowering peak. GBIF presently holds no georeferenced occurrences for the species and lists no countries, consistent with its recent description and restricted, poorly collected range. It grows in moist, high-rainfall subalpine habitats characteristic of the genus: shaded streamsides, damp forest margins and seepage slopes within herb-rich alpine meadow.

Like other Himalayan balsams it is a soft, glabrous annual herb with translucent, watery stems and somewhat swollen nodes. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, with a serrate to crenate-serrate margin and an acuminate apex. The flowers are zygomorphic and resupinate, borne singly or in few-flowered axillary clusters; the lateral sepals are small while the lower sepal is expanded into a boat-shaped saccate body abruptly narrowed into a slender incurved spur, and the standard and paired united lateral petals complete the characteristically asymmetric corolla. The fruit is the typical fleshy, five-valved capsule that dehisces explosively, coiling its valves to fling out the seeds.

The genus Impatiens is exceptionally species-rich and taxonomically challenging in the Himalaya, with many micro-endemics distinguished by subtle differences in flower colour, spur curvature and seed sculpturing; I. devendrae is one such recently recognised entity. Its apparent restriction to a single famous valley underscores both its biogeographic interest and its conservation sensitivity, since narrow-range alpine annuals are highly exposed to trampling, tourism pressure and climatic change.

Author: Pusalkar · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of India, GBIF, Grey-Wilson: Impatiens of Africa and the Indian subcontinent

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens falcifer 

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Sikkim2003 66 P89
Sikkim Choka 2900m, August

Description

Impatiens falcifer is an eastern Himalayan balsam with a restricted distribution spanning Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and adjacent parts of southern China (Xizang). GBIF records list 67 occurrences, indicating a comparatively uncommon species. It is found in moist, sheltered habitats within temperate and subalpine forests, including shaded stream banks, mossy rock faces, and forest margins, at elevations of 2,200–3,500 m. The species frequently grows among ferns and other shade-tolerant herbaceous perennials in areas of high humidity.
Impatiens falcifer is an erect, succulent annual herb, 30–60 cm tall, with glabrous, translucent stems that are often reddish-tinged at the nodes. Leaves are alternate, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, 5–12 cm long, with serrate margins bearing small glandular teeth; the petioles are slender, 1–3 cm long. Flowers are borne in few-flowered axillary racemes. The flowers are yellow, often with reddish spots in the throat, 2–3 cm long, with a deeply saccate lower sepal that narrows into a conspicuously curved or falcate spur — the defining character from which the epithet derives. The lateral united petals are bilobed, the upper lobe ovate, the lower lobe distinctly falcate. The fruit is a fusiform capsule that dehisces explosively when ripe, a characteristic of the genus.
Described by Joseph Dalton Hooker from Sikkim collections, Impatiens falcifer belongs to the large and taxonomically challenging eastern Himalayan radiation of the genus. The photographed specimen from Choka in Sikkim at 2,900 m represents a typical mid-elevation occurrence in cloud-forest habitat. The species can be distinguished from superficially similar yellow-flowered congeners such as I. urticifolia by the strongly curved spur and falcate petal lobes. Its narrow geographical range and dependence on intact moist forest habitats suggest potential vulnerability to deforestation and land-use change.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of British India Vol. 1 (Hooker 1875), Grey-Wilson: Impatiens of Africa (1980), Akiyama et al. (1993)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens scabrida

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Bhutan2012 138 1
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3100m September

Description

Impatiens scabrida is a robust annual balsam native to the Himalaya, its core range spanning India, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Bhutan, though GBIF's 243 occurrences also include many records from Europe and elsewhere (Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Poland and others), reflecting its naturalisation as a garden escape outside its homeland. In its native range it grows on moist shaded banks, forest margins, ravines and streamsides. The photographed plant is from the Haa Valley in Bhutan at about 3100 m, flowering in September, in cool, damp temperate woodland.

The plant is a succulent, erect annual with translucent, often reddish, branched stems that are scabrid (rough), as the epithet records. The leaves are ovate to lanceolate, serrate, with gland-tipped teeth. The yellow flowers are zygomorphic and spurred in the manner of the genus: a saccate lower sepal drawn into a slender curved spur, an upper standard petal and paired lateral united petals forming wings. The fruit is a fleshy, explosively dehiscent capsule that ejects its seeds on contact, giving balsams their touch-me-not behaviour.

The species is accepted. Impatiens is a vast, taxonomically complex genus centred on tropical Asia and Africa, with the Himalaya a major centre of diversity and endemism. The yellow-flowered Himalayan balsams are pollinated chiefly by long-tongued bees, and the ballistic seed dispersal aids rapid colonisation, the very trait underlying this species' spread in European riparian and disturbed habitats. Its naturalised populations make it a subject of interest in invasion ecology.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Grey-Wilson's monograph Impatiens of Africa and Asian studies, Flora of Nepal

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens scitula

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Bhutan2012 334
Bhutan Dochu-La 3200m, September
Bhutan2012 931
Bhutan Tumching-La 3600m, October

Description

Impatiens scitula is a high-montane balsam of the eastern Himalaya, known from a small set of GBIF records (27 occurrences) in Bhutan, China and India. It grows in cool, humid subalpine settings along forest streams, shaded banks and seepage slopes near the upper limit of fir and rhododendron forest, flowering late in the growing season after the summer monsoon. It was recorded on the Bhutanese passes of Dochu-La at about 3200 m in September and Tumching-La at about 3600 m in October, elevations notably higher than those of most lowland balsams and indicative of its cold-tolerant montane preference.

It is a succulent annual herb with translucent, glabrous stems swollen at the nodes. The leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate, serrate to crenate-serrate with gland-tipped teeth, and tapered to a petiole. The flowers are zygomotphic and showy for their size, borne on axillary peduncles; the lower sepal is produced into a slender curved or incurved spur and the standard and wing petals form the elaborate, bilaterally symmetric corolla typical of the genus. The fruit is a fleshy, club-shaped capsule that dehisces explosively, the coiling valves flinging out the seeds.

Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) is exceptionally diverse in the Sino-Himalayan mountains, where high-elevation species such as I. scitula are often narrowly distributed and distinguished by fine details of spur and petal form. Its restriction to a few eastern Himalayan localities at high elevation makes it a regional endemic of biogeographic interest. Although no formal conservation assessment is published, narrowly ranged high-altitude balsams of this kind are potentially vulnerable to climatic warming and habitat disturbance.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Flora of British India, Grey-Wilson and allied revisions of Asian Impatiens (Balsaminaceae)

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens spirifer

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f. et Thomson

Bhutan2015 60
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October
Bhutan2015 59
Bhutan Wangdi Phodrang 2000m, October
BhutanPG2011 37
Bhutan Pele-La, 2800m June
Bhutan2012 1338
Bhutan Pemagatse, 2000m October

Description

Impatiens spirifer is an annual balsam of the eastern Himalaya, recorded by GBIF in some 52 occurrences from India, China, Bhutan and Nepal. It favours cool, shaded and humid situations such as forest margins, ravine banks, seepage slopes and roadside ditches in the temperate and upper-subtropical belt, broadly between 1800 and 3000 m. The accompanying images were taken in Bhutan at Wangdi Phodrang and Pemagatse (2000 m, October) and the Pele-La (2800 m, June), documenting a long flowering season that extends through the monsoon into autumn on moist, organic-rich soils where balsams thrive.

The plant is a succulent, glabrous herb with translucent, often reddish-tinged stems that are erect to ascending and somewhat swollen at the nodes. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, crenate-serrate with the lowermost teeth sometimes gland-tipped, narrowing to a petiole. The flowers are zygomorphic and resupinate, borne singly or in few-flowered axillary clusters; the lower sepal forms a navicular spur that is slender and incurved, while the lateral united petals are deeply two-lobed. The fruit is a fleshy, fusiform capsule that dehisces explosively, the valves coiling to fling out the small seeds.

Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) is among the largest angiosperm genera, exceptionally species-rich and rapidly radiating in the Sino-Himalayan region, where narrow endemism and floral micromorphology drive species delimitation. GBIF treats I. spirifer as accepted. Like many montane balsams it is closely tied to perennially moist microhabitats and is thus vulnerable to drainage, disturbance and shifts in monsoon reliability, although it remains locally frequent within suitable forest.

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

Bignoniaceae

Incarvillea diffusa

by G & P Jürgens

Royle

Nepal 99 904 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hanke 2660m, July
Nepal 99 905 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hanke 2660m, July

Description

Incarvillea diffusa is a herbaceous member of the Bignoniaceae distributed through the Himalaya into southwest and central China, with GBIF recording close to 1,900 occurrences chiefly from China, Nepal and India together with scattered cultivated and naturalised records elsewhere. It inhabits open, often disturbed ground at middle elevations: grassy and shrubby slopes, forest margins, roadside banks, ravines and rocky places, broadly between about 2000 and 3500 m. The photographed plant from Hanke in west Nepal at 2660 m, flowering in July, sits within this mid-montane band and at the height of the monsoon, the season when the species comes into bloom on moist, sunlit hillsides among grasses and scrub.

It is an erect to ascending, branching herb commonly reaching 30-80 cm, sometimes more, with a sturdy rootstock. The leaves are alternate and pinnately to bipinnately compound, the leaflets ovate, toothed and softly herbaceous, giving the plant a leafy, somewhat diffuse aspect that suits its specific epithet. The flowers are borne in lax terminal racemes or panicles; each has a campanulate calyx and a showy, bilabiate, funnelform to trumpet-shaped corolla, yellow with the throat and tube often marked or flushed, and four didynamous stamens enclosed within. The fruit is an elongate, narrowly cylindrical capsule that splits to release numerous flat, winged seeds.

Incarvillea is an Asian genus of around fifteen species centred on the Sino-Himalayan region and the Tibetan plateau, ranging from low herbs to robust perennials, and is unusual within the mostly woody, tropical Bignoniaceae in being entirely herbaceous. I. diffusa belongs to the yellow-flowered, pinnate-leaved group and is distinguished by its diffuse branching habit and floral details. Widespread and frequent in suitable open habitats, it is of no conservation concern, and its showy blooms have brought several relatives of the genus into horticulture.

Author: Royle · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Nepal, Grierson and Long's Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Grey-Wilson's revision of Incarvillea

Asteraceae

Inula grandiflora 

by G & P Jürgens

Willd.

Garw 2005 26 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal 2950m, September
Garw 2005 27 ergebnis ergebnis
India Garhwal 2950m September

Description

Inula grandiflora Willd. is a stout perennial composite of the western and central Himalaya, ranging from Pakistan and northern India through Nepal, with related records extending into the wider Irano-Turanian and Caucasian region (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia). It occupies open subalpine and alpine slopes, grassy meadows, forest clearings and rocky banks in the upper-temperate to alpine belt. The photographed plants from Garhwal in the Indian Himalaya at 2950 m, flowering in September, exemplify its preference for sunny, well-drained montane grassland where it flowers late in the season as the monsoon eases, frequently forming conspicuous stands on open hillsides.

The plant produces erect, leafy, often somewhat hairy stems from a woody rootstock. The alternate leaves are oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, sessile and frequently half-clasping the stem, with finely toothed margins and a roughened or pubescent surface. The inflorescence is a large, solitary or few-headed terminal capitulum (the epithet grandiflora referring to its size), subtended by overlapping herbaceous involucral bracts; the head bears numerous narrow, spreading golden-yellow ray florets surrounding a central disc of tubular florets. The fruit is a ribbed, cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of fine bristles that aids wind dispersal.

Within the genus Inula (Asteraceae, tribe Inuleae) this is one of the showiest Himalayan species, valued horticulturally and used locally in traditional medicine. Its large, nectar- and pollen-rich heads attract bees, butterflies and other insects, making it an important late-season forage plant. Though not globally threatened and locally common, its alpine grassland habitats are subject to grazing and climate-driven upslope vegetation shifts.

Author: Willd. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Flora of China (Asteraceae), Compositae of the Himalaya

Asteraceae

Inula hookeri

by GP Jürgens

C.B.Clarke

Bhutan2012 181
Bhutan Haar-Valley, 3200m September
Bhutan2012 846
Bhutan Nangsephal, 2700m October
Bhutan2012 848
Bhutan Nangsephal, 2700m October

Description

Inula hookeri is a showy yellow-flowered composite of the eastern Himalaya, native to China, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Myanmar, and frequently cultivated in temperate gardens, which accounts for British, Irish, North American and Antipodean records; GBIF lists about 383 occurrences. It grows in subalpine meadows, open forest, shrubby slopes and grassy clearings, mostly between about 2400 and 3600 m. The photographed plants are from the Haar valley in Bhutan at 3200 m in September and from Nangsephal at 2700 m in October, flowering through the late monsoon into autumn.

The plant is an erect, hairy perennial herb arising from a short rhizome, with leafy, softly pubescent stems. The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, acuminate, finely toothed and clasping or sessile at the base, hispid on both surfaces. The capitula are large and solitary or few at the stem tips, radiate, with numerous very narrow, thread-like, pale to greenish-yellow ray florets spreading in a fringed circle around a disc of deeper yellow tubular florets; the involucre is hemispherical with linear, leafy, spreading phyllaries. The fruit is a small ribbed cypsela bearing a pappus of a single row of barbellate bristles.

Inula belongs to the tribe Inuleae, and I. hookeri, named for J. D. Hooker, is distinctive for its softly spidery, narrow-rayed heads that open from woolly buds. Valued in horticulture for its long flowering and attractiveness to pollinators, it is common in the wild and not considered threatened.

Author: C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Systematics of Inula and allied genera (Inuleae)

Iridaceae

Iris clarkei

by GP Jürgens

Baker ex Hook.f.

BhutanPG2011 773 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La, 3900m June
Bh09 35 P65
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m June
Bh09 206 P346
Bhutan Dochu-La, 3000m June

Description

Iris clarkei is an eastern Himalayan beardless iris distributed through Bhutan, Sikkim and northeastern India, Nepal, southern Tibet (China) and northern Myanmar, with GBIF holding about 174 occurrences. It is a subalpine to alpine moisture-lover, recorded here from two Bhutanese passes, Chele-La at 3900 m and Dochu-La at 3000 m, both flowering in June. The species favours wet alpine meadows, marshy hollows, stream sides and seasonally flushed turf on slopes, typically between roughly 3000 and 4300 m, where it forms colonies in the open, moist grassland of the upper temperate and subalpine zones.

It is a tufted rhizomatous perennial of the Sibiricae group, with slender creeping rhizomes producing erect, solid (not hollow) flowering stems that are characteristically branched and bear a distinctive solid pith. The leaves are linear-ensiform, grass-like, ribbed and grouped in basal fans. Each stem carries one to several flowers; the perianth is blue-violet to reddish-purple, the spreading or deflexed falls bearing a paler, conspicuously veined and blotched signal patch, and the standards are smaller and more erect, the flowers beardless and crestless. The fruit is a three-angled loculicidal capsule containing flattened seeds.

Described by Baker (ex Hook.f.) and named for C. B. Clarke, the species belongs to series Sibiricae, the Asian relatives of Iris sibirica, and is of horticultural interest for its solid stems and richly marked falls. Though restricted to specialised wetland habitats, it remains locally common within its range; pressures such as grazing, trampling and drainage of montane mires are the principal local threats to its boggy habitat.

Author: Baker ex Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Mathew The Iris, British Iris Society A Guide to Species Irises