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Summer

Asteraceae

Leontopodium himalayanum

by GP Jürgens

DC.

BhutanPG2011 507
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Shashuna, 4000m June
Nepal 99 528 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3800m, June

Description

Leontopodium himalayanum is the characteristic Himalayan edelweiss, distributed across China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar (CN, NP, IN, BT, PK, MM), with about 437 GBIF occurrences mapping a broad but strictly montane range along the chain. It occupies alpine and subalpine meadows, open grassy and stony slopes, screes and rocky banks, generally above the forest limit. The photographed plants were recorded on the Ludlow-Sherriff Trail at Shashuna in Bhutan at 4000 m and at the Churta-Khola in West Nepal at 3800 m, both in June, flowering early in the high-mountain season on exposed turf.

It is a tufted perennial herb growing from a short branched rhizome, producing several erect or ascending flowering stems 5–30 cm tall, the herbage greyish with a dense appressed white tomentum. The leaves are linear, linear-lanceolate or oblong-spathulate, sessile, woolly especially beneath. The inflorescence is crowned by a spreading rosette of lanceolate floral bracts much more densely white-lanate than the foliage, forming the radiating star that distinguishes the edelweiss. Several small subglobose capitula are clustered at the centre of this ruff; the heads bear yellowish tubular florets and are functionally subdioecious. The fruit is a minute cypsela tipped with a pappus of slender, barbellate to subplumose bristles facilitating wind dispersal.

Within Leontopodium (tribe Gnaphalieae) the Himalayan species form a closely allied group differentiated chiefly by indumentum density and bract proportions, and L. himalayanum (described by DC.) is the most widespread representative across the range. Its conspicuous woolly star is a classic alpine adaptation buffering the reproductive organs against ultraviolet exposure, cold and water loss. The species is common and not regarded as threatened, although picking and collection have locally reduced populations near trekking routes.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Leontopodium monograph (Handel-Mazzetti, revision of the genus)

Asteraceae

Leontopodium nivale subsp. alpinum

by G & P Jürgens

(Cass.) Greuter

Sikkim2003 325 P462 ergebnis
Sikkim Samiti lake 4000m, July

Description

Leontopodium nivale subsp. alpinum, the classic alpine edelweiss, is a high-mountain perennial of the Asteraceae with a remarkably broad circum-montane distribution. GBIF records (over 20,000 occurrences) document its core European range across the Alps and Carpathians (France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Croatia) extending eastward into Ukraine and disjunctly to the Sino-Himalayan region (China, India). It is a calcicole of stony alpine meadows, rocky ledges and screes, typically between 1,700 and 4,000 m. The Himalayan population photographed at Samiti Lake in Sikkim at 4,000 m in July illustrates the upper elevational reach of the species complex in seasonally snow-fed alpine turf.

The plant forms compact tufts from a woody caudex, with erect unbranched stems 5–20 cm tall arising from basal leaf rosettes. Leaves are lanceolate to oblong, grey-green and densely white-tomentose on both surfaces, the indumentum of interwoven hairs reducing transpiration and reflecting intense UV radiation. The conspicuous "flower" is in fact a pseudanthium: several small yellowish-white capitula are surrounded by a stellate arrangement of densely woolly, snow-white bracts forming the characteristic star. Each capitulum contains tubular florets, with marginal female and central functionally male florets; the achenes are small and bear a pappus of barbellate bristles.

The Leontopodium nivale complex is taxonomically intricate, with subsp. alpinum often treated as the type European edelweiss and frequently confused with Himalayan congeners such as L. himalayanum. A celebrated symbol of alpine flora, it is legally protected in several European countries against collection, and its woolly indumentum is a textbook example of adaptation to cold, high-irradiance environments.

Author: (Cass.) Greuter · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora Europaea Vol. 4, GBIF, Handel-Mazzetti: Monographie der Gattung Leontopodium (1928)

Lamiaceae

Leonurus cardiaca

by G & P Jürgens

L.

Garh 07 310 ergebnis
India Garhwal Bebra 2450m, June

Description

Leonurus cardiaca, motherwort, is a perennial herb of Eurasian origin that has become widely naturalised, with a very large GBIF dataset of 79501 occurrences concentrated in Europe, Russia and temperate North America. It is a plant of disturbed, nutrient-rich ground, occurring on roadsides, hedgerows, waste places, field margins, fallows and around habitation. The plant recorded at Bebra in the Garhwal Himalaya at 2450 m in June represents an introduced or naturalised montane occurrence, where it grows on open, anthropogenically disturbed ground and flowers in early summer.

The species is an erect perennial reaching 0.5-1.2 m, with the quadrangular stems typical of Lamiaceae, often branched and somewhat pubescent. The leaves are opposite and decussate, long-petiolate, the lower palmately three- to five-lobed with coarsely toothed lobes, grading to narrower, fewer-lobed leaves above. The small flowers are borne in dense axillary verticillasters subtended by stiff, spinescent bracteoles; each has a five-toothed, rigid, sharply pointed calyx and a two-lipped pinkish to pale purple corolla, the upper lip densely white-villous and the lower three-lobed, enclosing four didynamous stamens. The fruit comprises four trigonous nutlets.

Leonurus belongs to the subfamily Lamioideae, and L. cardiaca has long been valued in herbal medicine as a cardiac and nervine tonic, the basis of both its scientific and common names. As a hardy, seed-prolific ruderal, it spreads readily in disturbed temperate habitats and is locally established well beyond its native Eurasian range; it is of no conservation concern and is sometimes regarded as a minor weed.

Author: L. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 17, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Krestovskaja's revision of Leonurus

Brassicaceae

Lepidostemon williamsii

by GP Jürgens

(H.Hara) Al-Shehbaz

BhutanPG2011 417
Bhutan Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail Warrtlang-La, 4400m June

Description

Lepidostemon williamsii is a rare high-alpine crucifer known only from Nepal and Bhutan, and is among the most sparsely documented species in this account, with merely about 12 GBIF records. It is confined to the upper alpine zone, growing on open screes, moraines, gravelly slopes and rock crevices near the limit of vascular plant life. The single cited collection, from the Ludlow-Sherriff-Trail at Warrtlang-La in Bhutan at about 4400 m in June, exemplifies its restriction to cold, exposed, well-drained mineral substrates where snow lies late and the growing season is extremely short.

The plant is a small, often cushion-forming or low tufted perennial herb adapted to severe alpine conditions, with a basal cluster of leaves that are entire to shallowly toothed or lobed. The flowers are typical of the family, with four sepals and four clawed petals arranged in a cross and arrayed in a short, congested raceme. The genus Lepidostemon is diagnosed by its distinctive stamens, whose filaments bear conspicuous scale-like or winged appendages, a feature reflected in the generic name. The fruit is a short silicula or silique characteristic of high-alpine Brassicaceae, splitting to release the seeds.

The species was originally described by H. Hara and transferred to Lepidostemon by Al-Shehbaz, whose revisions have clarified the circumscription of the small Sino-Himalayan genera of Brassicaceae. As a narrow-range endemic occupying a very specialised and harsh high-alpine niche with very few known populations, L. williamsii is inherently vulnerable, and its restricted distribution makes it a priority for monitoring against habitat disturbance and climatic change.

Author: (H.Hara) Al-Shehbaz · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Al-Shehbaz's revision of Himalayan Brassicaceae

Trichosporeae

Leptoboea multiflora

by GP Jürgens

(C.B. Clarke) Benth. ex Gamble

BhutanPG2011 823 01 01
Bhutan Paro 3000m, July

Description

Leptoboea multiflora is a perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent Southeast Asia, with 153 GBIF occurrences recorded from India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. As a member of the Gesneriaceae, it grows in shaded, humid forest, typically on mossy rocks, boulders, banks and tree bases in damp, sheltered situations of the temperate broad-leaved zone, often between about 1500 and 3000 m. The plant photographed at Paro in Bhutan at 3000 m in July occupies the upper end of this range, flowering during the moist monsoon period when atmospheric humidity is high.

The species is a low, herbaceous to slightly succulent perennial with short stems and leaves that may be clustered or subopposite, the blades ovate to elliptic, crenate to serrate at the margins and frequently pubescent, with the asymmetric, anisophyllous tendency common in the family. The flowers are numerous, as the epithet indicates, borne in axillary cymes; each has a small five-lobed calyx and a tubular, somewhat bilabiate corolla, with the typically reduced fertile stamen number of the gesneriad tribe and a superior ovary. The fruit is a slender, elongate capsule dehiscing to release very numerous minute seeds.

The entry lists the family as Trichosporeae, which is in fact a tribe of Gesneriaceae rather than a family; the accurate placement is Gesneriaceae, subfamily Didymocarpoideae, tribe Trichosporeae, within which Leptoboea is a small Asian genus allied to Boea and Paraboea. As a humidity-dependent epilithic forest herb, it is sensitive to canopy disturbance, though it remains locally frequent in undisturbed montane forest.

Author: (C.B. Clarke) Benth. ex Gamble · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 18, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Weber's classification of Gesneriaceae

Asteraceae

Ligularia atkinsonii

by GP Jürgens

(C.B.Clarke) S.W.Liu

Sikkim2003 365 P512 2
Sikkim Lachen 2740m, August

Description

Ligularia atkinsonii is a tall herbaceous perennial of the Himalaya and adjacent China, with verified occurrences in Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar. It favours moist, cool situations such as forest margins, streamsides, damp meadows and shrubby slopes through the temperate and subalpine zones, broadly between about 2500 and 4000 m. The plant photographed at Lachen in northern Sikkim at around 2740 m in August represents its late-summer flowering, when these golden composites are conspicuous in the monsoon-fed grasslands and clearings of the inner valleys.

The species arises from a stout rootstock bearing large, long-petioled basal leaves; these are broadly cordate to reniform, with toothed margins and a soft texture, the bases of the petioles often sheathing the stem. The flowering stem is erect, leafy below and bears a narrow elongate inflorescence (a raceme or narrow panicle) of numerous radiate capitula. Each head has an involucre of few narrow phyllaries and carries several spreading yellow ray florets around a disc of tubular florets. The fruit is a glabrous cylindrical achene topped by a pappus of fine brownish bristles aiding wind dispersal.

Ligularia, of tribe Senecioneae, is a large and taxonomically demanding genus centred on the Sino-Himalayan region, and L. atkinsonii, transferred to the genus by S.W. Liu from a C.B. Clarke basionym, is distinguished by its leaf shape and narrow inflorescence. Ecologically these robust herbs are important late-season nectar sources in subalpine meadows. The species is reasonably widespread along the Himalaya and is not currently considered to be of conservation concern, though it depends on the persistence of moist montane grassland.

Author: (C.B.Clarke) S.W.Liu · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal

Asteraceae

Ligularia fischeri

by GP Jürgens

Turcz.

BhutanPG2011 810 01 01
Bhutan Chele-La 3900m, August

Also: Primula smithiana Craib / Primula sikkimensis Hook.f.

Description

Ligularia fischeri is a robust, broadly distributed temperate-montane composite ranging across East Asia and the Himalaya, recorded from Japan, Korea (KR, KP), China, Russia, Mongolia, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar (JP, KR, CN, RU, NP, KP, IN, MN, BT, PK, MM), with nearly 3000 GBIF occurrences; further records from Europe and North America reflect cultivation and naturalisation. It favours moist, fertile situations: streamsides, wet meadows, marshy ground, forest margins and damp open slopes from montane to alpine elevations. The photographed plant grew on the Chele-La in Bhutan at 3900 m in August, flowering through the monsoon among tall herbaceous vegetation, here associated with Primula smithiana and Primula sikkimensis.

It is a stout perennial herb with a thick, fibrous-rooted rhizome producing erect flowering stems up to 1–1.5 m or more. The basal leaves are large, long-petiolate and reniform-cordate, with toothed margins and a broad, deeply cordate base, the petioles sheathing at the stem; cauline leaves diminish upward and become more clasping. The inflorescence is an elongate terminal raceme or narrow panicle of several to many radiate capitula, each subtended by a cylindric involucre of few phyllaries. The heads bear a few showy, ligulate, golden-yellow ray florets surrounding numerous yellow tubular disc florets. The fruit is a glabrous, cylindric, ribbed cypsela crowned by a pappus of whitish to brownish capillary bristles.

Ligularia (tribe Senecioneae) is a large genus of the temperate Old World especially diverse in the mountains of China; L. fischeri, described by Turczaninow, is among its most familiar and economically used species, its young leaves and shoots being gathered as a traditional vegetable and the plant valued horticulturally for damp gardens. Ecologically it is a tall-herb component of moist subalpine communities and a generalist food source for late-summer pollinators. Common and widespread, it is of least conservation concern.

Author: Turcz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 20-21, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Ligularia monograph (Liu, Senecioneae of China)

Asteraceae

Ligularia hookeri

by G & P Jürgens

(C.B.Clarke) Hand.-Mazz.

Sikkim2003 242 G332
Sikkim Dzongri 4100m, August

Description

Ligularia hookeri is a robust perennial herb of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, recorded from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar, with around 574 georeferenced records spanning the subalpine and alpine zones. It inhabits alpine meadows, open grassy slopes, forest margins and damp, rocky ground, often in seepage areas and along streams. The plant photographed at Dzongri in Sikkim at 4100 m, flowering in August, is characteristic of its high-elevation summer habitat, where it flowers at the height of the monsoon among other tall meadow herbs.

It arises from a stout rootstock and produces a cluster of large basal leaves on long, sometimes purplish petioles; the blades are broadly reniform to orbicular-cordate, palmately veined and toothed at the margin. The flowering stem is erect and stout, bearing few to several large capitula in a lax raceme or corymb. Each head has an involucre of broad bracts and is radiate, with conspicuous yellow to orange-yellow ligulate ray florets surrounding numerous tubular yellow disc florets. The fruit is a glabrous cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of fine bristles.

Ligularia, of tribe Senecioneae, is distinguished from related Senecio and Cremanthodium by its radiate, erect, large-headed inflorescences and broad cordate leaves; C. B. Clarke first described this taxon, later combined in Ligularia by Handel-Mazzetti. The showy heads are pollinated by bumblebees, butterflies and flies of the high meadows, and the pappose cypselae are wind-dispersed. The species is widespread across the eastern Himalaya and of no current conservation concern, though it forms a conspicuous and ecologically important element of alpine pastures.

Author: (C.B.Clarke) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Liu monograph of Ligularia

Asteraceae

Ligularia mortonii

by GP Jürgens

(C.B.Clarke) Hand.-Mazz.

Bh09 38 P69
Bhutan Paro 2400m, June

Description

Ligularia mortonii is an East Himalayan endemic distributed across Bhutan, Nepal and adjacent north-eastern India, with GBIF documenting some 81 georeferenced occurrences concentrated along the inner Himalayan ranges. It is a plant of moist subalpine to temperate environments, favouring damp meadows, streamsides, forest margins and open grassy slopes where summer monsoon moisture is reliable. The photographed material from Paro in western Bhutan at around 2400 m, flowering in June, typifies its altitudinal preference in the temperate broadleaf and conifer belt, though populations ascend higher into subalpine pastures. Its restricted range marks it as a regional element of the Sino-Himalayan flora.

A robust perennial herb arising from a short stout rhizome bearing fibrous roots, it produces erect, often purplish, sparsely arachnoid-pubescent stems. The basal and lower cauline leaves are long-petiolate with reniform to cordate, palmately veined blades, the margins dentate to denticulate; upper leaves are progressively reduced and amplexicaul with sheathing bases. The capitula are radiate, several to many in an elongate raceme or narrow panicle, each subtended by small bracts. Involucral phyllaries are uniseriate and herbaceous; ray florets are yellow, ligulate and pistillate, surrounding numerous tubular yellow disc florets. The fruit is a glabrous cylindric cypsela crowned by a pappus of fine barbellate bristles.

The genus Ligularia (tribe Senecioneae) is centred on the mountains of China and the Himalaya, where it has radiated extensively, and species delimitation often rests on leaf shape, capitulescence form and phyllary characters. L. mortonii, based on Senecio mortonii, exemplifies the taxonomic complexity of the group. Like many congeners it accumulates pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and its nectar-rich heads attract bumblebees and other montane pollinators. Though not formally assessed as threatened, its dependence on intact subalpine meadow and forest-edge habitat renders it locally vulnerable to grazing pressure and land-use change.

Author: (C.B.Clarke) Hand.-Mazz. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Liu's Monograph of Ligularia (Senecioneae)

Asteraceae

Ligularia retusa

by GP Jürgens

DC.

Sikkim2003 446 P619
Sikkim Chopta-Valley 4250m, August

Description

Ligularia retusa is a robust perennial composite of the alpine zone of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent China, native to China, Nepal, Bhutan and India, with about 201 documented occurrences. It grows in moist alpine meadows, streamsides, marshy turf and damp open slopes, typically between about 3500 and 4500 m. The photographed plant was recorded in the Chopta Valley of northern Sikkim at 4250 m, flowering in August, at the height of the monsoon when meltwater and rainfall sustain the lush herbaceous communities of the high pastures.

The species is a stout herb arising from a short rhizome with fibrous roots, producing a few large basal leaves on long petioles; the blades are reniform to broadly cordate with a retuse or shallowly notched apex (the epithet retusa) and a crenate-dentate margin, glabrous or thinly hairy. The cauline leaves are smaller and clasping. The inflorescence is a raceme or narrow corymb of several to many radiate capitula; the involucral bracts are in one or two series, and the heads bear bright yellow to orange-yellow ligulate ray florets surrounding numerous tubular disc florets. The fruit is a glabrous cylindrical cypsela crowned by a pappus of slender bristles.

Ligularia, of the tribe Senecioneae, is a large genus centred on the Sino-Himalayan mountains, distinguished from Senecio by its few-seriate involucre and habit; species delimitation in the Himalayan radiation is often difficult. As a tall meadow herb it is a conspicuous element of late-summer alpine flora and is visited by a range of insects. Widely distributed across the eastern Himalaya, it is not regarded as being of conservation concern.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, The Genera Ligularia, Cremanthodium and Parasenecio (Liu)