D.Don
Description
Trollius pumilus is a dwarf globeflower of the high alpine zone of the Himalaya and western China, native to China, Nepal, India and Bhutan, with over 520 georeferenced records (those reported from Europe, Canada and Japan representing cultivated and herbarium material). It grows in moist alpine meadows, on grassy and peaty slopes and beside snow-melt streams, typically between about 3500 and 4800 m. The photographed plant was recorded at Jule-Tso in Bhutan at 4250 m, flowering in June, early in the alpine growing season as snowbeds retreat and the high pastures come into bloom.
The species is a small, tufted perennial herb with a short rhizome and fibrous roots, the basal leaves long-petiolate with palmately three- to five-partite blades, the segments further lobed and toothed. The flowering stems are low, simple and few-leaved, bearing usually a single terminal flower. The flower is shallowly bowl-shaped and does not close into the globe characteristic of some congeners; the five or more petaloid sepals are bright golden-yellow, often flushed purplish or greenish outside, surrounding numerous small linear nectariferous petals (staminodes) and many stamens. The fruit is a cluster of several many-seeded follicles with short beaks.
Trollius, of the family Ranunculaceae and tribe Helleboreae, comprises the globeflowers of northern temperate and alpine regions; T. pumilus is among the smallest, distinguished by its open, single-flowered, low-growing habit. As an early snow-melt alpine it is insect-pollinated and a familiar component of Himalayan high-meadow flora. Widespread and locally abundant, it is of no conservation concern and is occasionally grown as an alpine ornamental.
Author: D.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, A Monograph of the Genus Trollius (Doroszewska)