Tag:

Summer

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

Fabaceae

Chesneya nubigena

by G & P Jürgens

(D.Don) Ali

Nepal 99 312 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kalmura 4300m, June

Description

Chesneya nubigena (D.Don) Ali is a prostrate alpine legume of the Himalaya and Hindu Kush, represented by some 318 records concentrated in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and adjacent China, with scattered extralimital reports. It is a plant of high open ground: stony alpine slopes, gravelly flats, moraines and the margins of grazed pastures, generally between about 3500 and 4800 m. The individual photographed at Kalmura in West Nepal at 4300 m in June illustrates its occupation of cold, well-drained, often wind-exposed substrates where it grows close-pressed to the ground amid sparse turf.

The species forms a low, mat-forming to shortly tufted perennial from a deep woody rootstock and branched caudex. The leaves are imparipinnate with several pairs of small, oblong to obovate leaflets, often somewhat pubescent and frequently spine-tipped on persistent rachides. The flowers are large relative to the plant and borne singly or few together on short axillary peduncles; the papilionaceous corolla is yellow to reddish or purple-tinged, the standard broad and the keel obtuse. The calyx is tubular and obliquely toothed, and the fruit is an oblong, sessile to shortly stipitate, more or less inflated legume, hairy and several-seeded.

Chesneya is a small genus of central and high Asia closely allied to Astragalus and Gueldenstaedtia, and C. nubigena has been treated under various combinations reflecting its taxonomic history. Its cushion-like habit, deep roots and silky indumentum are classic adaptations to the cold, arid, high-radiation conditions of the inner Himalayan ranges, where it also fixes atmospheric nitrogen. Widespread if local, it is not regarded as threatened, though heavy grazing pressure in alpine pastures can locally reduce populations.

Author: (D.Don) Ali · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, revision of Chesneya and allied Astragaleae

Ericaceae

Chimaphila japonica

by G & P Jürgens

Miq.

BhutanPG2011 74
Bhutan Menchuang, 2700m June

Description

Chimaphila japonica Miq. is a diminutive evergreen subshrub with a wide temperate East Asian and Himalayan range, documented by GBIF from Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Taiwan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal across more than 3000 occurrences. It is a plant of shaded, humus-rich coniferous and mixed forest floors, often associated with mossy banks and the litter beneath fir, spruce and oak, generally between 1500 and 3000 m. The individual recorded at Menchuang in Bhutan at about 2700 m in June reflects this montane forest habitat, where the species benefits from the partial mycoheterotrophic nutrition characteristic of the wintergreen group.

The plant produces slender creeping rhizomes from which arise short, erect aerial stems bearing whorled or subverticillate, leathery, evergreen leaves. The leaves are oblanceolate to elliptic, sharply serrate towards the apex, dark green and glossy above, and somewhat clustered in the upper part of the stem. One to several nodding flowers are borne on a terminal peduncle; each flower has five spreading, waxy white to pinkish petals, ten stamens with conspicuously dilated, ciliate filaments and inflated anthers opening by pores, and a stout columnar style topped by a broad peltate stigma. The fruit is an erect, dehiscent globose capsule splitting from the apex.

Chimaphila belongs to the Pyroleae of subfamily Monotropoideae within a broadly circumscribed Ericaceae, partially mycoheterotrophic woodland herbs. Chimaphila japonica is closely allied to the boreal C. umbellata but is distinguished by its smaller stature and leaf form. Given its broad distribution it is not considered threatened, though it depends on intact forest soils and their mycorrhizal networks, making it a useful indicator of mature montane woodland.

Author: Miq. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Japan, Flora of Bhutan, Krisa monograph of Pyrolaceae

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 fruticans 

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Banfi

Nepal 99 947 ergebnis
Nepal Parela 3000m, July

Description

Chrysojasminum fruticans, formerly placed in Jasminum and long known as Jasminum fruticans, is a small evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub of the family Oleaceae. The bulk of its GBIF records lie around the Mediterranean basin and into Western Asia, encompassing France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, the Caucasus and North Africa, where it is a classic component of dry maquis and garrigue. Its appearance in the western Himalaya, as in the Nepalese collection from Parela at about 3,000 m in July, represents the eastern extremity of an essentially Irano-Turanian to Mediterranean distribution, where it occupies sunny, rocky, calcareous slopes, open scrub and woodland margins.

The plant forms a much-branched shrub up to about 1–2 m with slender, green, angular twigs. The leaves are alternate and pinnately compound, usually trifoliolate or with up to five small obovate to oblong leaflets, glabrous and somewhat leathery, the foliage persisting through mild winters. The flowers are borne in small terminal cymes of a few blooms; the corolla is salverform with a slender tube expanding into five spreading lobes and is a distinctive bright yellow, only faintly scented in contrast to the white-flowered jasmines. The fruit is a small, shining, globose berry that ripens from green to black.

The transfer of this and allied yellow-flowered jasmines to the segregate genus Chrysojasminum reflects molecular phylogenetic evidence that the yellow jasmines form a distinct lineage within tribe Jasmineae, separate from the white-flowered Jasminum sensu stricto. Ecologically it is drought-adapted and characteristic of thermophilous, calcicolous communities, valued in horticulture as a hardy ornamental. Its scattered, peripheral Himalayan occurrence is biogeographically notable, illustrating the westerly Mediterranean affinities present in the dry inner valleys of the Himalaya.

Author: (L.) Banfi · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora Europaea Vol. 3, Flora of Pakistan, Green: A Revision of Jasminum (Oleaceae), Flora Iberica

Saxifragaceae

Chrysosplenium griffithii

by GP Jürgens

Hook.f. & Thomson

BhutanPG2011 277
Bhutan Jule-La 4610m, June

Description

A small perennial golden-saxifrage of the high Himalaya and the eastern Tibetan region, recorded from China, Bhutan, India and Nepal, with about 485 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of cold, wet ground, frequenting seepages, stream margins, dripping rock ledges, snowmelt flushes and moist alpine meadows, generally between about 3300 and 4800 m. The figured plant was photographed in June on the Jule-La in Bhutan at roughly 4610 m, an exceptionally high, water-saturated alpine habitat that suits its preference for permanently moist, cool substrates.

The species is a low, somewhat fleshy herb spreading by short stolons and slender rhizomes to form loose patches. The leaves are mostly alternate, with rounded to flabellate, crenate blades on slender petioles. The inflorescence is a flattened, leafy-bracted cyme in which the conspicuous element is not the petals, which are absent, but the four spreading, yellow to greenish-yellow sepals surrounding a flat floral disc. Each flower has eight stamens inserted around the disc and a semi-inferior ovary of two carpels with divergent styles. The fruit is a two-beaked, widely gaping capsule that opens to expose numerous tiny seeds, which are splashed out by raindrops, a dispersal mode well suited to its wet habitats.

Accepted by POWO and GBIF, C. griffithii belongs to a genus of typically apetalous, water-loving herbs in which species are separated by leaf arrangement, stolon habit and seed surface. Ecologically it is a specialist of alpine springs and flushes, often growing among mosses, and is an indicator of cold, base-rich seepage. Restricted to such microhabitats but widespread across the high Himalaya, it is locally frequent and not regarded as threatened, though dependent on stable hydrology in a warming alpine environment.

Author: Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Hara revision of Himalayan Saxifragaceae

Saxifragaceae

Chrysosplenium nudicaule

by GP Jürgens

Bunge

BhutanPG2011 422
Bhutan Warrthang, 4400m June
BhutanPG2011 212 scaled
Bhutan Warrthang, 4400m June

Description

Chrysosplenium nudicaule is a small alpine herb of the high mountains of central and eastern Asia, recorded from China, the Russian Far East and Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Bhutan, northern India and Japan, with 323 GBIF occurrences. It is a plant of moist, cold, rocky habitats: streambanks, wet gravels, seepages, scree and the margins of snow-melt rills in the alpine and subnival zones, generally between 3500 and 5300 m. The illustrated plant was photographed at Warrthang in Bhutan at 4400 m in June, when the species flowers shortly after snow-melt in the brief high-alpine growing season.

It is a low, tufted, fleshy perennial spreading by slender stolons or rhizomes and forming small mats. The largely basal leaves are reniform to flabellate with a few broad crenate teeth, somewhat succulent, on slender petioles, while the flowering stems are nearly leafless (hence nudicaule). The inflorescence is a compact terminal cyme subtended by conspicuous yellow-green floral bracts. The flowers are apetalous, the showy parts being four erect, suborbicular yellow-green sepals; there are eight stamens and a bicarpellate ovary with two diverging styles. The fruit is a two-lobed capsule splitting to release numerous minute, finely papillose seeds.

The golden saxifrages, Chrysosplenium, are a north-temperate and arctic-alpine genus distinguished by petal-less, sepal-coloured flowers; C. nudicaule belongs to a Sino-Himalayan group of stoloniferous high-elevation species. Its small bract-framed flowers attract flies and other small insects, and stolon growth permits clonal spread across unstable wet substrates. With a very wide circum-Asian distribution it is not considered threatened, although its dependence on reliable snow-melt moisture makes it a useful indicator of alpine hydrological change.

Author: Bunge · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Hara: The Flora of Eastern Himalaya

Asteraceae

Cirsium eriophoroides

by GP Jürgens

Petr.

Sikkim2011 257
Sikkim Lada-La 3800m, June
BhutanPG2011 284
Bhutan Jule-Tso, 4200m June
Sikkim2003 412 W574
Sikkim Zemu Valley 3400m August

Description

Cirsium eriophoroides is a robust alpine thistle of the eastern Himalaya and Sino-Tibetan mountains, recorded from China, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal, with about 234 GBIF occurrences. It grows in subalpine to alpine meadows, open grassy slopes, forest clearings and disturbed pasture, generally between about 3000 and 4500 m. The photographed plants come from Lada-La in Sikkim (3800 m, June), Jule-Tso in Bhutan (4200 m, June) and the Zemu Valley in Sikkim (3400 m, August), spanning the early and late high-Himalayan growing season.

The plant is a stout biennial or perennial herb with an erect, ridged, cobwebby-woolly stem reaching well over a metre. The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, deeply pinnatifid and conspicuously spiny along the margins, decurrent on the stem and white-tomentose beneath. The large capitula are solitary or few at the stem apex, subtended by leafy bracts and densely enveloped in long, white, arachnoid wool, the epithet "eriophoroides" likening this to the cottongrass Eriophorum. The involucral phyllaries are narrow and spine-tipped; the florets are tubular and purple to reddish, the fruit a smooth cypsela bearing a plumose pappus of feathery bristles.

Cirsium is a large genus of the tribe Cardueae, and C. eriophoroides represents the woolly-headed high-montane element well developed in the Sino-Himalaya. Its conspicuous capitula are visited by bumblebees and other long-tongued insects. Widespread and often associated with grazed ground, it is not regarded as threatened.

Author: Petr. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Compositae of the Sino-Himalaya (Cardueae studies)

Asteraceae

Cirsium laniflorum

by GP Jürgens

(M.Bieb.) Fisch.

Bh09 287 P470
Bhutan Pele-La, 2900m June

Description

Cirsium laniflorum is a thistle whose GBIF-documented range lies chiefly in the Pontic–Caucasian and adjacent regions, with records from Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia and Belgium among its roughly 92 occurrences; the himalayaflora image, taken at the Pele La in central Bhutan at 2900 m in June, documents a Himalayan population of a Cirsium of this affinity flowering in early summer. The plant occupies open grassy slopes, meadow margins, disturbed ground and roadside banks, growing on well-drained mineral soils in cool montane conditions where it forms part of the tall-herb and pasture vegetation.

The species is a robust biennial or perennial herb with an erect, often longitudinally ridged stem arising from a stout rootstock. The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate in outline and pinnatifid, their lobes and margins armed with stiff yellowish spines, and the surfaces are more or less woolly, particularly beneath. The capitula are terminal, solitary or in small clusters, subtended by spine-tipped involucral bracts and conspicuously clothed in cobwebby, woolly indumentum, a feature evoked by the epithet laniflorum ("woolly-flowered"). The florets are all tubular and purple to pink-purple, and the cypselae bear a plumose, feathery pappus that detaches as a unit.

Cirsium belongs to tribe Cardueae of the Asteraceae, the spiny thistle group, in which the woolly involucres of species like C. laniflorum help insulate the developing florets and deter herbivores. The tubular flowers are visited by bumblebees, butterflies and other long-tongued insects, and the plumed achenes disperse on the wind. With a broad if scattered Eurasian distribution, the species is not of conservation concern; like many thistles it can behave as a ruderal coloniser of disturbed and grazed ground.

Author: (M.Bieb.) Fisch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Asteraceae), Flora of Bhutan, Werner Cirsium revision

Ranunculaceae

Clematis barbellata

by GP Jürgens

Edgew.

Nepal 99 580 ergebnis
West-Nepal Garpung-Khola 3400m, July
Garh 07 576 ergebnis
India Garhwal Seema 3400m, June

Description

Clematis barbellata is a Sino-Himalayan climber of the temperate and subalpine belt of the central and eastern Himalaya, with georeferenced collections (some 159 occurrences in GBIF) spanning India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Myanmar and adjacent China. It ascends through shrubberies, forest margins and open rocky slopes, scrambling over Berberis, Rosa and Rhododendron thickets between roughly 2700 and 3800 m. The species is well represented in the western and central Himalaya, as documented by the photographed populations from West Nepal at the Garpung-Khola at 3400 m in July and from Garhwal at Seema, India, near 3400 m in June, where it flowers during the early monsoon.

It is a woody, deciduous climber with slender, ribbed, often purplish stems clambering by means of twining petioles. The leaves are opposite and pinnately to biternately compound, the leaflets ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, coarsely toothed or lobed and somewhat hairy beneath. The nodding, campanulate flowers are solitary or few in the leaf axils and lack true petals; the four spreading to incurved sepals are dull purple to violet-brown, thick-textured and conspicuously bearded along the margins with pale hairs, hence the epithet barbellata. Numerous stamens surround the many free carpels, which mature into a cluster of achenes bearing long, plumose, persistent styles that aid wind dispersal.

Within Clematis, the species belongs to the group of montane, axillary-flowered bell clematises related to C. montana and C. connata, distinguished by its barbellate sepal margins. As a member of Ranunculaceae it contains protoanemonin-type compounds rendering the foliage acrid and unpalatable to grazers. Though restricted to high elevations, it remains locally frequent across a broad Himalayan range and is not considered threatened, its principal role being as a structural element of subalpine scrub.

Author: Edgew. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Grey-Wilson Clematis: The Genus