Tag:

Summer

Balsaminaceae

Impatiens sulcata

by GP Jürgens

Wall.

Bh09 387 P613
Bhutan Mo-Chu, 1500m June

Description

Impatiens sulcata is a tall, robust annual balsam of the Himalaya, recorded by GBIF (361 occurrences) from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and adjacent China and Myanmar. It favours damp, nutrient-rich ground along streams, ditches, forest margins, roadside seepages and disturbed moist sites, principally from around 1500 to 3000 m in the warm-temperate and subtropical belts. The cited gathering from the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at 1500 m in June reflects its riparian preference, the plant typically forming dense, gregarious stands in the early monsoon along watercourses where the soil remains saturated.

The species is a succulent herb often exceeding a metre in height, with stout, conspicuously grooved (sulcate), reddish, hollow stems that root at the lower nodes. The leaves are large, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, serrate with crenate-glandular teeth, and arranged oppositely or in whorls toward the apex. Flowers are large and showy, pink to purplish, borne in axillary racemose clusters; the lower sepal forms a saccate spur, the standard is dorsally carinate, and the lateral united petals carry broad auricles. The fruit is a fleshy, club-shaped capsule that dehisces explosively, scattering the seeds by elastic recoil of the valves.

Belonging to the speciose, taxonomically complex genus Impatiens, the species sits among the tall Himalayan annual balsams and is allied to such forms as I. glandulifera, with which it shares vigorous growth and explosive seed dispersal. Its annual, fast-growing, ruderal habit makes it an effective colonist of disturbed riparian ground, while its open flowers are pollinated by bees and butterflies. It is widespread and not threatened.

Author: Wall. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 12, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Flora of Nepal, Grey-Wilson Impatiens of Africa and the Himalaya

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

Bignoniaceae

Incarvillea mairei 

by G & P Jürgens

(H.Lév.) Grierson

Nepal 99 727 ergebnis ergebnis
West-Nepal Poksundo-Lake 3650m, July

Description

Incarvillea mairei is a stemless, rosette-forming alpine perennial of the Bignoniaceae, distributed across the high mountains of the Sino-Himalayan region. GBIF data (over 450 occurrences) document its native range in China and Nepal, with additional herbarium material in European collections. It is a plant of open alpine and subalpine slopes, stony pastures, grassland and rocky ground, generally between about 2,500 and 4,500 m. The collection from near Phoksundo Lake in West Nepal at 3,650 m in July reflects its preference for sunny, well-drained high-altitude meadows where it flowers during the summer monsoon.

Unlike the woody, climbing members of its family, I. mairei is a low herb with a stout, fleshy taproot and a basal rosette of pinnately divided to lyrate-pinnatifid leaves with crenate leaflets. The flowers are borne on a short, leafless scape and are among the most striking of any alpine herb: large, trumpet-shaped and showy, with a broadly campanulate corolla 5–8 cm long, deep rose-pink to magenta with a paler or yellow-marked throat. The corolla is weakly two-lipped with five spreading lobes, enclosing four didynamous stamens. The fruit is an elongate, woody, more or less terete capsule that splits to release numerous flat, winged seeds.

Incarvillea is a primarily Sino-Himalayan and Central Asian genus that is anomalous within the largely tropical and woody Bignoniaceae for its herbaceous, frost-tolerant alpine species. The genus is of considerable horticultural interest, I. mairei being prized in rock gardens for its outsized blooms. As a showy alpine endemic to the region, it is locally vulnerable to collection and to the degradation of high-altitude pasture, though it remains widespread within its native range.

Author: (H.Lév.) Grierson · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Grierson: Notes on the Genus Incarvillea (Bignoniaceae)

Bignoniaceae

Incarvillea younghusbandii

by G & P Jürgens

Sprague

Nepal 99 729 ergebnis ergebnis
West-Nepal Poksundo-Lake 3650m, July

Description

Incarvillea younghusbandii is a dwarf, ground-hugging alpine herb of the high Tibetan plateau and the adjoining Himalaya, recorded from China (Xizang), Nepal and Bhutan with about 180 GBIF occurrences. It is a specialist of cold, arid to semi-arid high-elevation habitats: gravelly flats, stony alpine steppe, sandy river terraces and screes, typically between roughly 3,600 and 5,000 m. The plant documented at Phoksundo Lake in West Nepal at 3,650 m, flowering in July, sits near the lower edge of its range and illustrates its association with the dry, rain-shadowed inner Himalayan valleys that grade into the Tibetan plateau flora.

The plant is a stemless or nearly stemless perennial arising from a thick, fleshy taproot. The leaves form a flat basal rosette and are pinnately or pinnatisect-compound with rounded, crenate leaflets, often somewhat fleshy and pressed close to the ground. The flowers are large and showy relative to the diminutive plant, borne almost sessile within the rosette; the corolla is broadly funnelform to trumpet-shaped, rose-pink to magenta with a paler or yellowish throat, weakly bilabiate with five spreading rounded lobes. The fruit is an elongate, beaked, dehiscent capsule releasing flattened, winged or hairy-margined seeds.

The rosette-and-taproot habit is a classic adaptation to the wind-blasted, frost-prone, short-season conditions of the plateau, minimising exposure while presenting flowers at ground level to insect pollinators. Incarvillea is the principal temperate Asian genus of the otherwise largely tropical Bignoniaceae, and this species belongs to its specialised high-alpine, acaulescent group. Though not formally assessed, its restricted habitat warrants attention.

Author: Sprague · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Grierson: Bignoniaceae revisions of the eastern Himalaya

Fabaceae

Indigofera dosua

by G & P Jürgens

Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don

Bhutan2014 844
Bhutan Thimphu 2230m, May
Bh09 393 G625
Bhutan Mo-Chu, 1550m June

Description

A shrubby indigo widespread across the Himalaya and South to South-East Asia, native to India, Nepal, China, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with around 436 GBIF occurrences (numerous European and other records represent cultivated or herbarium material). It grows on sunny open slopes, scrub, forest margins, roadbanks and disturbed ground in the warm-temperate and subtropical zones, mostly between about 1200 and 2700 m. The featured plants were recorded in Bhutan in May and June, at Thimphu around 2230 m and the lower Mo-Chu valley at about 1550 m, both warm montane settings.

The species is a much-branched, erect to spreading shrub with slender, ribbed twigs bearing characteristic appressed, biramous (medifixed) hairs. The leaves are imparipinnate with numerous small, opposite, oblong to obovate leaflets that are sparsely strigose and minutely mucronate. Flowers are borne in slender, elongate axillary racemes; each papilionaceous flower has a small campanulate calyx and a pink to purplish-red corolla comprising a broad standard, two wings and a spurred keel, with diadynamous stamens. The fruit is a slender, straight, linear, terete to slightly compressed pod that splits along both sutures to release several small, cylindric seeds, the valves often twisting on dehiscence.

Accepted by POWO and GBIF, I. dosua belongs to the large, taxonomically complex genus Indigofera, distinguished from relatives by its leaflet number, indumentum and pod form. As a nitrogen-fixing legume it enriches poor montane soils and colonises disturbed sites, while its flowers attract bees. Widespread, adaptable and frequent in secondary habitats, it is of no conservation concern and is sometimes used locally for fodder, green manure and as a dye source.

Author: Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Sanjappa monograph of Indian Indigofera

Fabaceae

Indigofera heterantha

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex Brandis

Garh 07 220 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kawara 2000m, June
Garh 07 221 ergebnis
India Garhwal Kawara 2000m, June

Description

Indigofera heterantha (Wall. ex Brandis), a deciduous shrub of the subfamily Faboideae, is widely distributed across the western and central Himalaya, ranging from Afghanistan and Pakistan eastward through northern India, Nepal and Bhutan into southwest China. With over 1,100 georeferenced occurrences recorded in GBIF, it is a common and conspicuous element of the temperate zone, and has additionally become naturalised in cultivation across Europe, North America, Japan and the Southern Hemisphere. The species favours open hillsides, forest margins, dry stony slopes and degraded scrub, typically between 1,500 and 3,000 m, as reflected in the collection from Garhwal at Kawara, India, at 2,000 m in June, where it forms part of the sun-loving sub-alpine shrubbery.

The plant is an erect, much-branched shrub reaching 1–2 m in height, with slender, angular, greyish branchlets bearing appressed, biramous (medifixed) hairs that lend a canescent aspect to young growth. The leaves are imparipinnate with 11–21 small, obovate to elliptic leaflets, each mucronate at the apex and silky-pubescent beneath. Numerous purplish-red to bright pink-crimson papilionaceous flowers are borne in dense, erect axillary racemes that often exceed the subtending leaf; the calyx is shortly toothed and the standard petal silky on its outer face. The fruit is a slender, terete, glabrescent legume containing several cuboid seeds.

Formerly treated under the name Indigofera gerardiana, the species is taxonomically allied to the I. hebepetala group of Himalayan legumes. It is an important soil-binding pioneer on eroding slopes, contributing nitrogen through rhizobial symbiosis, and the tough stems are traditionally harvested for basketry and fuel. Its hardiness and floriferous habit have made it a popular ornamental in temperate gardens. The species is not considered threatened, being abundant throughout its broad montane range.

Author: Wall. ex Brandis · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Pakistan, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 10, Sanjappa: Legumes of India (1992)

Convolvulaceae

Ipomoea purpurea

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Roth

Garh 07 250 ergebnis
India Garhwal Barron Chatti 2300m, June
Bhutan2015 563
Bhutan Mo-Chu 1550m, October

Description

Ipomoea purpurea, the common morning glory, is a neotropical species of Mexican and Central American origin now thoroughly naturalised worldwide; GBIF records exceed 36,000 occurrences spanning the Americas (US, MX, BR, EC, PE, AR, BO, CO), Europe, southern Africa, eastern Asia and Australia. In the Himalaya it persists as an escaped ornamental and weed of disturbed ground, hedgerows, field margins and roadsides. The plants noted at Barron Chatti in Garhwal at 2300 m in June and along the Mo-Chu in Bhutan at 1550 m in October illustrate its tolerance of a broad warm-temperate to subtropical elevation range and its long, monsoon-spanning flowering season.

It is an annual twining herb with slender, retrorsely hairy stems climbing by means of left-handed coiling. The leaves are alternate, long-petiolate, broadly ovate-cordate and usually entire, acuminate at the apex with a deep basal sinus. Flowers arise in axillary cymes of one to several; each has a hairy, lanceolate-lobed calyx and a showy funnelform corolla 4 to 6 cm across, varying from purple and violet-blue to pink, magenta and white, with a paler throat and five faint interplical bands. The five stamens are unequal and included; the superior ovary ripens into a globose, three-locular capsule releasing several glabrous, dark trigonous seeds.

The species is taxonomically straightforward within Ipomoea but horticulturally polymorphic, with numerous colour cultivars. Its self-compatible, bee-pollinated flowers and prolific hard-coated seed make it a successful colonist and, in warm regions, an agricultural weed. It is of no conservation concern; rather, its capacity to naturalise warrants monitoring in ruderal habitats.

Author: (L.) Roth · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 16, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Pakistan, A Monograph of the Convolvulaceae (Ipomoea)

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

Iridaceae

Iris collettii

by G & P Jürgens

Hook.f.

Nepal 99 413 ergebnis
West-Nepal Talphi 2830m, June
Nepal 99 414 ergebnis
West-Nepal Talphi 2830m, June
Nepal 99 415 ergebnis
West-Nepal Talphi 2830m, June

Description

Iris collettii is a Himalayan iris distributed from western Nepal through northeast India and northern Myanmar to southwest China (Yunnan, Sichuan) and northern Thailand. GBIF records approximately 349 occurrences, with the majority from China and Myanmar. The species favours open, grassy slopes, forest margins, and pine-oak woodland clearings at elevations of 1,800–3,200 m, typically on well-drained soils. At Talphi in western Nepal at 2,830 m, it grows in open montane grassland and along forest edges, flowering in June at the onset of the monsoon season — a period when the grassy slopes of the western Nepalese mid-hills support a rich herbaceous flora.
Iris collettii is a rhizomatous perennial herb, 20–40 cm tall. The rhizome is slender, creeping, and clothed in persistent fibrous leaf bases. Leaves are basal, linear-ensiform, 15–30 cm long and 5–10 mm wide, with a prominent midrib, often slightly falcate. The stem bears 1–3 terminal flowers subtended by a pair of spathaceous bracts. Flowers are 4–6 cm in diameter, blue-violet to deep purple; the falls are obovate with a prominent white and yellow signal patch and darker veining, while the standards are erect, oblanceolate, and slightly paler. The style branches are petaloid and arching over the stamens. The fruit is an ellipsoid capsule, trigonous, 2–3 cm long, containing brown angular seeds.
Iris collettii was described by J.D. Hooker and named in honour of Sir Henry Collett, who collected extensively in Myanmar and northern India. The species belongs to subgenus Limniris, section Lophiris (crested irises), and is distinguished from the related I. decora by its generally shorter stature, narrower leaves, and deeper violet flower colour. Its occurrence in western Nepal at Talphi represents the westernmost limit of its known Himalayan distribution. The species is of biogeographical interest as a link between the Sino-Himalayan and Indo-Burmese iris floras.

Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Nepal Checklist, Mathew: The Iris (1981)

Iridaceae

Iris dolichosiphon

by GP Jürgens

Noltie

Bh09 30 G56
Bhutan Shele-La 4000m, June
Bh09 31 P57
Bhutan Shele-La 4000m, June

Description

Iris dolichosiphon is a high-alpine dwarf iris restricted to the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, a narrow-range endemic recorded by GBIF from only China, Bhutan and India, with a small total of around 77 occurrences reflecting both its limited distribution and the remoteness of its habitat. It grows in open alpine turf, meadows, grassy slopes and rocky pastures above the treeline, generally between about 3500 and 4500 m, where snow-melt and short cool summers govern its brief flowering season. The photographed plant from the Shele La in Bhutan, at roughly 4000 m and flowering in June, is exactly typical of its occurrence on exposed high passes, where it forms low cushions among short alpine vegetation soon after the snow recedes.

It is a small, tufted perennial of the dwarf-crested and beardless Himalayan iris assemblage, arising from a slender, fibrous-coated rhizome and producing narrow, linear, grass-like leaves. The flowers are nearly sessile at ground level but are raised, in effect, by an extremely long, slender perianth tube, the character that gives the species its epithet (dolichos, long; siphon, tube), so that the floral parts are presented well above the very short stem. The flowers are violet to lilac-blue, the three outer tepals (falls) spreading and signalled with a paler, veined and crested or ridged blaze, the three inner tepals (standards) smaller and erect; the three petaloid style branches arch over the stamens.

Described by H. J. Noltie, who clarified much of the Sino-Himalayan iris flora, I. dolichosiphon belongs to the alpine, beardless dwarf irises and is allied to species such as I. kemaonensis and the I. goniocarpa group, from which the conspicuously elongate perianth tube distinguishes it. Its pollination by long-tongued bumblebees is favoured by the deep tube, and seed is set in a capsule that ripens as the brief alpine season closes. As a narrowly distributed high-altitude endemic with few records, it warrants monitoring; while not formally assessed as threatened, its restricted range and sensitivity to climate-driven shifts in the alpine zone make it of biogeographic and conservation interest.

Author: Noltie · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Noltie's account of the Sino-Himalayan irises