Tag:

Summer

Fabaceae

Tibetia himalaica

by GP Jürgens

(Baker) H.B. Cui

Sikkim2003 527 P735
Sikkim Yume Samdong 4600m August
Sikkim2003 528 P736
Sikkim Yume Samdong 4600m August

Description

Tibetia himalaica is a high-altitude legume of the Sino-Himalayan region, distributed across the Tibetan Plateau and adjoining mountains in China, Nepal, India and Bhutan; GBIF records over 800 occurrences concentrated in the high alpine belt. It is a plant of alpine meadows, short turf, gravelly slopes, riverine flats and open stony ground, typically between 3,000 and 5,000 m. The individual photographed at Yume Samdong in northern Sikkim at 4,600 m in August captures the species near the upper limit of its range, flowering during the late-summer monsoon on the cold, well-drained alpine soils characteristic of this trans-Himalayan locality.

It is a low, cushion-forming or mat-like perennial herb arising from a slender, often woody taproot and a branched caudex, the stems short and largely prostrate. The leaves are imparipinnate, with several pairs of small, obovate to elliptic, often emarginate leaflets on short petioles, the whole appressed-pubescent. The flowers are solitary or few in an umbel-like arrangement on slender scapes; each is a typical papilionaceous flower with a campanulate, hairy calyx and a blue to purplish or violet corolla comprising a broad standard, oblong wings and an incurved keel. The fruit is a cylindrical, glabrescent legume that dehisces to release several small seeds.

Tibetia is a small genus of about half a dozen species segregated from Gueldenstaedtia, restricted to the high mountains of the Sino-Himalayan and Central Asian region and distinguished by its solitary or few-flowered scapes, persistent stipules and alpine cushion habit. As a nitrogen-fixing legume forming root nodules with rhizobia, T. himalaica contributes to soil enrichment in nutrient-poor alpine turf and is grazed by livestock and wild herbivores. Its wide but high-altitude distribution renders it ecologically secure at present, though high-elevation specialists of this kind are regarded as potentially sensitive to climate warming; it has not been formally assessed for the IUCN Red List.

Author: (Baker) H.B. Cui · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, revision of Tibetia and Gueldenstaedtia (Fabaceae)

Apiaceae

Tordyliopsis brunonis

by G & P Jürgens

DC.

Sikkim2011 224
Sikkim Yumthang 3600m, June

Description

Tordyliopsis brunonis DC. is a monotypic genus of Apiaceae endemic to the high Himalaya. GBIF data (121 occurrences) document its occurrence in Nepal, north India (including Sikkim), Bhutan, and adjacent southwest China, where it inhabits open alpine meadows, rocky slopes, and grazed turf. The species was photographed at Yumthang in Sikkim at 3,600 m in June, consistent with its alpine ecology in the subalpine-to-alpine belt between roughly 3,000 and 4,500 m, where it flowers as snowmelt recedes. It typically grows in moist, humus-rich pockets among boulders and in herb-rich pasture.

The plant is a low perennial herb arising from a stout taproot, with short, often more or less prostrate or ascending stems. The leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with toothed leaflets, forming a basal cluster. As in most Apiaceae the inflorescence is a compound umbel, here subtended by conspicuous bracts and bracteoles; the small white to pinkish flowers give rise to dorsally compressed mericarps whose lateral wings and ribbed dorsal surface recall those of Tordylium, the genus from which the name ("resembling Tordylium") derives.

Tordyliopsis occupies an isolated position within subfamily Apioideae and has been the subject of debate regarding its tribal placement, owing to its distinctive winged fruit anatomy. As a Himalayan endemic restricted to high elevations, it is potentially vulnerable to climate-driven upslope habitat contraction and intensive summer grazing, though no formal IUCN assessment exists. It serves as a useful indicator of intact alpine meadow communities.

Author: DC. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 14, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, Pimenov & Leonov: The Genera of the Umbelliferae (1993)

Anacardiaceae

Toxicodendron succedaneum

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Kuntze

Garh 07 283 ergebnis
Indi Garhwal Belak Khal 2600m, June

Description

Toxicodendron succedaneum ((L.) Kuntze), the wax tree or Japanese wax tree, is a deciduous tree of the Anacardiaceae native across eastern and southern Asia, ranging from the Himalaya (India, Nepal) through China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan to Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia). With around 6,400 GBIF occurrences, it is well documented, and the species has also become naturalised and locally invasive in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In the Himalaya it grows in temperate broad-leaved forest, on open slopes and forest edges, ascending to roughly 2,600 m, as shown by the Garhwal record from Belak Khal at 2,600 m in June.

The plant is a small to medium-sized tree reaching 8–10 m, with smooth grey bark and a spreading crown that turns brilliant scarlet and orange in autumn. The leaves are alternate and imparipinnate, 25–35 cm long, with 7–15 lanceolate to oblong, entire, glabrous leaflets that are glaucous beneath and taper to an acuminate apex. The small, yellowish-green, functionally unisexual flowers are borne in axillary panicles, the species being dioecious. The fruit is a flattened, asymmetrical, pale brown drupe whose mesocarp is rich in vegetable wax.

As in other members of Toxicodendron, the resinous sap contains urushiol-type allergens that can cause severe contact dermatitis, and the plant should be handled with caution. Economically it has long been cultivated in Japan and China for the wax ("sumac wax") extracted from the fruits, used in candles, polishes and cosmetics. The genus was formerly merged into Rhus, but is now consistently segregated on the basis of its irritant sap and pendulous, papery-fruited inflorescences. The species is abundant and of no conservation concern.

Author: (L.) Kuntze · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Min & Barfod: Anacardiaceae in Flora of China (2008)

Asteraceae

Tragopogon gracilis

by G & P Jürgens

D.Don

Garh 07 34 ergebnis
India Garhwal Ransi at Mandakini 2000m, June

Description

Tragopogon gracilis is a slender goatsbeard of the western and central Asian mountains, distributed from Afghanistan (AF), Pakistan (PK) and the western Himalaya of India (IN) and Nepal (NP) through China (CN), Tajikistan (TJ), Kyrgyzstan (KG) and Iraq (IQ) into Russia (RU), with 312 GBIF occurrences. It grows on open grassy slopes, meadows, fields and disturbed ground in the temperate and subalpine zones. The illustrated plant was recorded in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya at Ransi above the Mandakini at about 2000 m in June, where it flowers in early summer.

It is an erect annual to biennial or short-lived perennial herb with milky latex and a slender, often sparingly branched stem. The leaves are linear to linear-lanceolate, grass-like, sheathing at the base and tapering to a fine point. The capitula are solitary and terminal, subtended by a single row of lanceolate involucral bracts that frequently exceed the ligules; all florets are ligulate (the head homogamous), yellow and sometimes purple-tinged on the outer face. The fruit is a long, beaked cypsela bearing a feathery, plumose pappus of plumose bristles that forms the conspicuous spherical seed-head typical of the genus.

Tragopogon belongs to tribe Cichorieae of Asteraceae, a group characterised by latex and ligulate florets. The genus is well known to botanists for recurrent allopolyploid speciation, and its Central Asian and Irano-Turanian species, including T. gracilis, form part of the steppe and mountain-meadow flora at the Himalayan range margin, of biogeographic interest as a western element extending into the high Himalaya.

Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China, Flora Iranica, Monograph of the genus Tragopogon

Boraginaceae

Trichodesma indicum

by G & P Jürgens

(L.) Lehm.

Nepal 99 565 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hurikot 2700m, June
Nepal 99 564 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hurikot 2700m, June
Nepal 99 910 ergebnis
West-Nepal Hanke 2700m, July

Description

Trichodesma indicum (L.) Lehm. is a herb of the borage family widespread across the Old World tropics and subtropics, native through India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar and extending to Southeast Asia, Africa and Australia, with over 1150 GBIF occurrences. It is a weedy plant of open dry ground, fallow fields, roadsides, wastelands and gravelly slopes, typically at low elevations but ascending in the inner Himalayan valleys. In western Nepal it was recorded at Hurikot at 2700 m in June and at nearby Hanke at the same elevation in July, an unusually high station reflecting warm, dry rain-shadow habitats in the upper Karnali region.

It is an erect, branching annual covered throughout with stiff, bulbous-based bristly hairs giving a harsh, scabrid texture. The leaves are mostly opposite below and alternate above, sessile, oblong to lanceolate, the margins entire and undersurface hispid. The flowers are solitary or in lax leafy cymes, nodding on recurved pedicels; the calyx is deeply lobed and sagittate at the base, and the pale blue to bluish-white corolla is rotate with a short tube and a twisted, beaked cone of connivent anthers projecting from the throat, a hallmark of the genus. The fruit separates into four ovoid, tuberculate nutlets enclosed by the enlarged, persistent calyx.

Trichodesma is distinguished within tribe Boragineae by its protruding, spirally twisted anther cone, and T. indicum is the most widely distributed species, much used in traditional South Asian medicine. Its bristly indumentum and burr-like calyx-enclosed nutlets aid epizoochorous dispersal, while its ruderal ecology has carried it far beyond its native range as an introduced weed. Common and adaptable, it is of no conservation concern.

Author: (L.) Lehm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of British India, Boraginaceae monograph (Kazmi revision of Trichodesma)

Cucurbitaceae

Trichosanthes tricuspidata

by G & P Jürgens

Lour.

Garh 07 292 ergebnis
India Garhwal, Belak Khal 2750m, June

Description

Trichosanthes tricuspidata is a climbing cucurbit widely distributed through tropical and subtropical Asia, from the Himalaya (India, Nepal, Bhutan) across China, Myanmar, Thailand and Indochina to Sri Lanka, Malesia, the Philippines and northern Australia. It is a liana of forest margins, thickets, secondary scrub and hedgerows, scrambling over shrubs and trees by means of tendrils. Though most frequent in the lowlands and lower hills, it ascends well into the temperate zone; the plant recorded at Belak Khal in Garhwal at 2,750 m in June marks an upper-elevation occurrence in the western Himalaya, flowering with the early summer warmth.

The plant is a perennial herbaceous to woody climber with branched tendrils and a tuberous rootstock. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to orbicular in outline and palmately three- to five-lobed, the lobes often again toothed or cuspidate, cordate at the base. The plant is dioecious; the flowers are white with the petals fringed into the long, lacy filaments characteristic of the genus, the male flowers in racemes and the females solitary. The fruit is a globose to ovoid berry that ripens bright orange-red, marked with pale stripes when young, containing flattened seeds embedded in pulp.

The genus Trichosanthes, distinguished by its delicately fimbriate corolla lobes, is a large Indo-Pacific group of considerable ethnobotanical importance. Trichosanthes tricuspidata, described by Loureiro, is well known in traditional medicine, its roots and fruit used in Ayurvedic and folk preparations despite the toxic, purgative nature of the fruit pulp. Widespread and ecologically versatile, ranging from tropical lowland to temperate montane forest, the species is common and is not regarded as threatened.

Author: Lour. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 19, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, GBIF, de Boer & Thulin: Trichosanthes revision

Boraginaceae

Trigonotis rotundifolia

by GP Jürgens

Benth. ex C.B.Clarke

BhutanPG2011 452
Bhutan Tsochenchen, 3550m June
Nepal 99 516 ergebnis
West-Nepal Churta-Khola 3800m, June
Nepal 99 615 ergebnis
West-Nepal Kagmara-La 4100m, July

Description

Trigonotis rotundifolia is a low-growing alpine forget-me-not relative of the Himalaya, with roughly 106 GBIF records across India, Nepal, China and Bhutan. It is a true high-alpine specialist, colonising open stony slopes, screes, moraine, rock crevices and short turf well above the treeline. The locations documented for the photographed material span a broad altitudinal band, from Tsochenchen in Bhutan at about 3550 m in June, through Churta-Khola in West Nepal at 3800 m, to the Kagmara-La at around 4100 m in July, confirming its preference for the upper subalpine to alpine zone where snow lingers and the season is brief.

It is a small, mat- or cushion-forming perennial herb with a branched rootstock and short, often prostrate or ascending stems clothed in appressed to spreading hairs. The leaves are small, crowded, and rounded to orbicular or spathulate, as the epithet indicates, narrowing into a winged petiole. The flowers are borne singly or in few-flowered leafy cymes; each has a deeply five-lobed calyx and a salverform to rotate, bright blue corolla with five yellow or white throat appendages (fornices) typical of the tribe. The fruit comprises four small, smooth, trigonous to keeled nutlets borne on short pedicels.

The genus Trigonotis is distinguished from Myosotis chiefly by nutlet morphology, the nutlets being triangular or pyramidal rather than dorsiventrally compressed. The genus is centred on the Sino-Himalayan and East Asian region, and the dwarf cushion habit of this species reflects convergent adaptation to cold, exposed, wind-pruned alpine sites. It is not formally assessed for conservation but, as a high-elevation endemic, is intrinsically sensitive to alpine habitat shifts under climate change.

Author: Benth. ex C.B.Clarke · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Nepal, Riedl Boraginaceae of the Himalaya

Boraginaceae

Trigonotis tibetica

by G & P Jürgens

I.M. Johnst.

Nepal 99 812 ergebnis
West-Nepal, Baga-La-Phedi 4300m, July
Nepal 99 813 ergebnis
West-Nepal, Baga-La-Phedi 4300m, July

Description

Trigonotis tibetica is a small alpine forget-me-not relative distributed across the Tibetan Plateau and the high Himalaya, recorded from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan, and reasonably well collected (c. 278 records in GBIF) across this broad arc. It inhabits open alpine turf, gravelly slopes, stabilised screes and the margins of meadows, typically between about 3500 and 5000 m, where snowmelt provides moisture through the brief summer. The photographed plant from West Nepal at Baga-La-Phedi (4300 m, July) is typical of the species in mid-summer flower in this cold, well-drained high-elevation setting.

The plant is a low, often tufted perennial herb with a slender taproot and prostrate to ascending stems, the whole frequently appressed-strigose or hispid. The leaves are small, spathulate to oblong-elliptic, entire, and crowded toward the base. The inflorescence is a short, ebracteate or basally bracteate cyme that elongates in fruit; the flowers are small and gamopetalous, with a blue (occasionally white) rotate to shallowly campanulate corolla bearing five vaulted faucal scales at the throat. The androecium has five included stamens; the gynoecium develops into the characteristic four nutlets, which in Trigonotis are conspicuously trigonous and tetrahedral, often borne on short gynobasic stalks.

The genus Trigonotis (tribe Trigonotideae) is distinguished from Myosotis and allied forget-me-nots chiefly by these sharply angled, pyramidal nutlets. Note that this taxon has historically been treated under Microula, and the source links accordingly to a Microula tibetica page; current nomenclature places the accepted name in Trigonotis. As a widespread plateau and Himalayan alpine, the species is not considered threatened.

Author: I.M. Johnst. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China (Boraginaceae), Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Monograph of Trigonotis (I.M. Johnston)

Melanthiaceae

Trillium govanianum

by G & P Jürgens

Wall. ex D.Don

Nepal 99 141 ergebnis
West-Nepal South of Rara-Lake 3800m, June
Nepal 2001 308 ergebnis ergebnis
Nepal (Gorkha) Kharka 3100m, May

Description

Trillium govanianum is a rhizomatous perennial herb of the family Melanthiaceae and the sole representative of the otherwise North American and East Asian genus Trillium in the Himalaya. GBIF data confirm a core distribution through Pakistan, India and Nepal, extending into Bhutan and the western fringe of China. It is a plant of moist, shaded temperate and subalpine forest, growing on humus-rich soils beneath Abies, Betula and rhododendron, and in damp alpine scrub and meadow margins, typically between about 2,800 and 4,000 m. The collections illustrated from south of Rara Lake in west Nepal at 3,800 m in June and from Kharka in Gorkha at 3,100 m in May are characteristic of this shaded, high-montane habitat.

The species arises from a short, thick, creeping rhizome and produces a single erect stem 10–30 cm tall bearing the diagnostic whorl of three broadly ovate, net-veined, sessile leaves at its summit. From the centre of this whorl a solitary, sessile or shortly stalked flower is borne; it is small and dark, with three narrow green sepals and three slender petals that are deep maroon to purplish-brown, accompanied by six stamens and a three-loculed ovary. The fruit is a fleshy, reddish berry-like capsule containing several seeds, in contrast to the dry capsules of many congeners.

The presence of a single Trillium in the Himalaya is of considerable biogeographic interest, representing a disjunct outlier of a genus otherwise centred on temperate North America and Japan. The species, locally known as nag chhatri, has become the focus of intense and unsustainable harvesting for its rhizome, which is traded for purported steroidal saponin content. This pressure, combined with slow growth and a narrow ecological niche, has raised serious conservation concern, and the plant is now regarded as threatened across much of its range.

Author: Wall. ex D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Farmer & Schilling: Phylogenetics of Trillium

Melanthiaceae

Trillium tschonoskii

by GP Jürgens

Maxim.

Bh2008 35 P57
Bhutan Doch-La, 3000m April
Bh09 212 G355
Bhutan Paro, 2400m June

Description

Trillium tschonoskii is a wide-ranging woodland herb of temperate East and South Asia, distributed from Japan, Korea and Taiwan through eastern and central China and into the Himalaya, reaching India, Bhutan and Nepal, with records also from the Russian Far East. With more than two thousand GBIF occurrences it is by far the most widespread Asian trillium, though it thins markedly toward its western Himalayan limit. It is a plant of cool, shaded, humus-rich broadleaved and conifer forest, favouring moist slopes and stream banks, generally between about 2300 and 3600 m in the Himalaya. The Bhutanese material illustrated, from Doch-La at 3000 m in April and from Paro at 2400 m in June, spans the species' flowering season as it tracks elevation, emerging soon after snowmelt in the deep shade of the forest floor.

The plant is a glabrous perennial arising from a short, thick, horizontal rhizome, producing a single erect stem that bears at its summit a single whorl of three broadly rhombic to ovate, net-veined, sessile or short-stalked leaves. Above this whorl a solitary flower is borne on a short erect pedicel. The flower is trimerous, with three green, lanceolate sepals and three white (sometimes ageing pinkish) ovate petals; six stamens with prominent anthers surround a superior, three-locular ovary topped by three recurved stigmas. The fruit is a fleshy, ovoid, reddish to dark berry-like capsule containing numerous seeds, each bearing an oily elaiosome that promotes dispersal by ants.

Trillium, now placed in the Melanthiaceae, is a classic component of the temperate deciduous forest flora of the Northern Hemisphere, and T. tschonoskii is the principal Asian representative reaching the Himalaya, exemplifying the floristic links between East Asian and Sino-Himalayan woodlands. Its slow growth, dependence on undisturbed forest humus and ant-mediated seed dispersal make it sensitive to habitat disturbance, and like many trilliums it has horticultural appeal and some traditional medicinal use of the rhizome, which can drive local collection. Although broadly distributed and not globally threatened, its peripheral Himalayan populations warrant monitoring as forest cover and microclimate change.

Author: Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3 Part 1, Flora of Nepal, Trillium (Frederick W. Case and Roberta B. Case)