Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Memorable Topics – Threads and posts that are just too good to lose => Plant Information and Portraits => Topic started by: alanelliott on September 23, 2014, 03:29:33 PM
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Just over two year ago I did the something very similar for the Darchula expedition I was part of and it went down well. So when I asked the SRGC for pennies to join this trip I said I would do the same again. So here it is and I'll add to it as I work through collection and am writing up the main reports.
From the 15th of August 2014 until the 15th of September 2014 I was part of the Flora of Nepal expedition to Baglung, Rukum and Dolpa Districts in Mid-West Nepal. Unlike my last trip http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9543 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9543) this was a Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE )led expedition; led by Dr Colin Pendry from RBGE, myself, two Nepalese members of staff from the Nepalese Department of Plant Resources (DPR) and Dr Patrick Kuss who is from the University of Zurich and is a Sibbald fellow here at RBGE. He is a Pedicularis expert who in the middle of a global revision of the genus currently working on the Flora of Nepal account and collaborating with Chinese scientists on the Pan-Himalayan Flora. The expedition was is part of the Flora of Nepal Project coordinated by the RBGE. All the specimen data, maps and the field images will (eventually) be freely available on www.floraofnepal.org (http://www.floraofnepal.org) and use the botanical locator link in the top right.
As before my part in the expedition was to continue to receive field training and to collect specimens for DNA analysis as part of my PhD project to investigate the biogeography of the Himalaya. I am currently writing up the reports for the SRGC, AGS and the Davis Expedition fund who all generously supported my participation. The reports will take a little time so I'll be share some images of the landscape and some interesting plants here and on Twitter. But I'll start with some statistics because everyone loves those.
We left Kathmandu at about 6pm on the overnight Burtibang Express a journey of some 360km (220 miles). It took us 26 hours on 4 buses and a jeep to reach Bobang where we started walking. This was due to the road beyond Pokhara becoming increasingly poor and doing it at night is far too dangerous. We slept in our very leaky bus overnight. I was so soaked in the morning I had to change clothes. We started to encounter landslides, which we were aware of and had to unload the bus of all the gear, haul it over the landslide and get on another bus which had been arranged by the transport company. This was easily the most dangerous part of the whole expedition because of the atrocious road conditions. So the less said about that the better.
During our 21 days in the field we covered approximately 200km (125 miles) on foot travelling North from Bobang in Baglung District, to Rukum over the main Himalayan ridge line and into Dolpa district and the Trans-Himalaya. As to be expected working in the Himalaya our route saw us make lots of ups and downs on a daily basis and we clocked up an altitudinal loss and gain of over 27,000m (88,500 ft) over the route.
This was a much smaller expedition than my previous Nepalese trip, consisting of 5 botanists, 3 Sherpa field assistants, 1 Sherpa leader, 1 cook, 3 kitchen staff, 17 porters. In total we collected 452 herbarium specimens with the associated silica dried leaf samples for later DNA extraction. Each herbarium specimen had five duplicates made at the time of collecting; one set each for the partner institutions: RBGE, Tokyo University, National Herbarium of Nepal and Tribhuvan University. The final set is for contributing experts to have a set of whatever taxa they work on in their home herbarium. The exception was CITES listed taxa such as orchids and in those cases only two specimens were collected to stay in Nepal.
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Overview of where we were
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Route, Camps and Passes.
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The full team of scientists, field assistants and porters with Dunai prison as a backdrop (Nice)
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So our daily routine was something like this
Up at 5.30-6am for a cup of tea and a bowl of washing water then pack up our personal gear.
6.30am we’d start checking how dry the previous days specimens were from the overnight drying.
If dry these would be bundled, dated and wrapped in plastic and stored in a metal trunk for protection. If they were still damp these were bundled for another night of drying.
7am (ish) we’d have breakfast as camp is dismantled around us then 7.30-8am we’d set off.We’d then walk and collected for the rest of the day until we reached camp which ranged from 3pm to almost 6pm. Depending on an inability to find a suitable camping site.
As we go we put specimens we collect into a field press. Specimens would be put in sheets of newspaper annotated with the collection number. Images are taken at the same time to capture characters like colour and shapes and sizes that are lost as the specimens are dried and squashed. Lat-Longs and altitude are taken using GPS, and a recorded waypoints which can be uploaded to the database and then the collections made at this locations are attached to this locality which minimises data entry errors.
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Our field assistants putting specimens of a Parnassia in the press at 4000m once we'd crossed the Phalgune Dhuri
Once at camp then process our specimen from the day repositioning them in their newspaper before putting them into the drying press. Each specimen would be put between two bits of blotting paper and then between two aluminium corrugates. As the specimens were being sorted a small piece of leaf material from each was put in a “teabag” and these were put in silica gel to dry them out. The specimens then spent the night on the drying frame above kerosene stoves.
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Colin pressing the new species of Clematis
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Drying Tent.
Data from our field books were entered into a copy of Padme, the Flora of nepal database. Once we’d finished that or had enough, which is what usually happened with data entry, we’d have dinner. This ranged from 6pm to 9.30pm and must really have annoyed the kitchen guys who wanted to cook for us get sorted and go to bed rather than hang about for us to finish.
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Data entry at Phalgune.
We’d have a quick chat about the day and what we might have in store the following day look at the map etcs and then to bed to get some sleep before repeating.
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Breakfast below Phalgune Dhuri where the camp including the mess tent had been dismantled around our heads leaving us to enjoy some alfresco breakfast dining.
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Its about time I posted some plants. I'll do this over a period of time as I work through my images and the Flora ones. Most of the names are the field idents we did using Flowers of the Himalaya and Flora of Bhutan that we had with us. It will take time to do proper identifications and I am more than happy with crowd sourced names!
I'll start off low altitude because thats what we did and as the posts progress I'll post some of my favourites from different days/altitudes etc as we move north from the subtropical valleys in Baglung to more temperate and alpine areas of Rukum and then in to the dry inner valleys of Dolpa.
These following images are from Baglung at about 1000-1200m in fairly well populated areas of rice and banana cultivation just north of Burtibang Bazar.
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Didymocarpus pedicellatus in the Gesneriaceae
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Corallodiscus lanuginosus
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Begonia picta but with a washed out leaf because of getting some direct sun.
Sorry not very Alpine-y
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What an experience this must be. Thanks for posting. 8)
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From the roadhead at Bobang we spend a few hours walking up to the village of Suprang through fields of maize collecting a few more plants as we went including Corydalis, Dactylicapnos macrocapnos and Pedicularis gracilis.
Patrick explained to us that Pedicularis gracilis in the past has been split into a number of what he considers synonyms based on number of leaves and stem hair number.
He was excited to fine his plant which has a stem of leaves and hairs in 3s and one of 4s coming from the same root system.
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Pedicularis gracilis with two stems with differing leaf and stem hair numbers but coming from the same root system.
Near the village of Suprang we had fun collecting Girardinia diversifolia (Himalayan Nettle) using an umbrella trying to avoid being stung - the stings are tens times worse than our Urtica. Near the end of the trek I was too busy watching some goats demolishing a field of beans to see one hanging over a drystane dyke and manages to sting an ear and my scalp. They throbbed and burned for about 12 hours and I felt the ear sting for a couple of days after, which made sleeping particularly uncomfortable as I rolled about.
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Colin collecting Girardinia diversifolia. With a funeral happening in the background.
We saw and collected a number of different Codonopsis species but a highlight was Codonopsis purpurea growing as an epiphyte on Rhododendron arboretum and a couple of other trees species. We couldn’t get to it so Tenzing paid a boy to climb the tree and collect it for us. This was the only time we saw this species where as Codonopsis grey-wilsonii was far more common and seen many times in Baglung and Rukum.
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Collecting Codonopsis purpurea
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Codonopsis purpurea
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That photo of Codonopsis purpurea is a stunner check out the sheen and substance of that flower.
We're all learning from this trip - talk about a win-win situation. Thanks, Al !
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Alan:
Thanks for bringing the other side of the world to my desk top. Any ideas what the irritant is in the nettle, Girardinia diversifolia?
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Alan:
Thanks for bringing the other side of the world to my desk top. Any ideas what the irritant is in the nettle, Girardinia diversifolia?
Pleasure!
Honestly I dont know for Girardinia. I do know in Urtica species that Oxalic and Tartaric acids as well as histamine have been isloated from sting fluid. As they are in the same family possibly something similar would be found in the Girardinia stings.
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Just love the internet.
http://www.botanical-dermatology-database.info/BotDermFolder/URTI.html (http://www.botanical-dermatology-database.info/BotDermFolder/URTI.html)
Girardinia diversifolia I. Friis ssp diversifolia
(syns Girardinia chingiana S.S. Chien, Girardinia condensata Wedd., Girardinia heterophylla Decne., Girardinia leschenaultiana Decne., Girardinia palmata Gaudich., Girardinia zeylanica Decne., Urtica diversifolia Link, Urtica heterophylla Vahl, Urtica horrida Link)
Himalayan Nettle, Nilgiri Nettle
Girardinia zeylanica yields a fibre that has been used for making clothes, with unpleasant results, owing to the extreme difficulty experienced in entirely removing the stinging principles, even in the severe processes to which the plant is subjected in order to extract the fibre (Philip Smith 1920a).
Extracts prepared from the whole leaves of Girardinia heterophylla homogenised in acetone have been shown to contain histamine, 5-hydroxytryptamine, and acetylcholine (Saxena et al. 1964, Saxena et al. 1966), it being suggested that these substances are responsible in whole or in part for the pain, triple response and dermatitis caused by the stings of this nettle (see also Dendrocnide moroides Chew above).
[Further information available but not yet included in database]
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North of Suprang and where we collected Codonopsis purpurea we walked through Abies, Betula and Rhododendron forest before emerging at Deurali Pass overlooking Syalpakhe floodplain and the Uttar Ganga Nadi. That evening we camped down by the river.
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Looking North to Syalpakhe
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Incidentally the other day a called the more abundant Codonopsis we saw in the forest Codonposis convolvulaceae. Turns out I was telling fibs and now I've spent time identifying the Campanulaceae specimens today it is actually Codonopsis grey-wilsonii.
Patrick was also in his element collecting a couple of Pedicularis which he was pleased with.
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Collecting Pedicularis klotzschii subsp lutescens in a boggy bit of ground and the attracting attention of locals
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A closer look at Pedicularis klotzschii subsp lutescens inflorescence
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Pedicularis hoffmeisterii another commonish species we saw and one I'll come back to another day
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Hello Alan just back from the SRGC discussion weekend where we saw so many wonderful pictures - now home to find your stunning pictures with report, thanks, cheers Ian the Christie kind
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Hello Alan just back from the SRGC discussion weekend where we saw so many wonderful pictures - now home to find your stunning pictures with report, thanks, cheers Ian the Christie kind
Cheers Ian. We should have a catch up re-Botanists Garden at some point when I'm back up the road.
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From the Uttar Ganga Nadi we continued north now following the Phalguni Khola. Initally we were walking through cultivated land and pasture in the broad valley but soon we were in the forest again. Our Nepali colleagues had set off early to the Dorpatan office to hand in our paperwork to the Park’s officials which was about an hour away and in the opposite direction to where we were going.
We collected Crementhodium ellisii, Koenigia , Nepeta and Delphinium and Primula munroi in an areas of degraded pasture within the forest.
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Primula munroi
We had managed to miss the trail and ended up going on an off piste adventure scrambling up and through dense Betula and Rhododendron forest before hitting a different good trail further up the slope.
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Morina longifolia
By lunchtime Colin who had been feeling unwell since the morning was knackered and had no appetite. I offered to take his collecting kit off him and we carried on. We hadn't gone much further before Colin stopped for a rest and was in a worse state than just half an hour before. With that our Sherpa's took his rucksack from him he was ordered just to walk to camp and not collect. We were also assured that camp was just round the corner.
Partick meanwhile was busy collecting Pedicularis siphonanatha, P. scullyana and P. megalantha.
I stopped to collect a big Swertia growing with its feet in a flowing burn, leaving Colin to plod on with his field assistant. I was with Tenzing who stopped to ask a group of women at a farm where our campsite was likely to be. They pointed way off into the distance and Tenzing look a bit shocked and got out his map. They oldest woman pointed to just below the pass and said thats were the next sensible place to camp is. It turned out that was another 4km and 500m of altitude gain away. After that I had lost any enthusiasm for collecting as I was feeling pretty tired too and just walked on and catch up with Colin. Tenzing decided to say behind and wait for Patrick and hopefully Ganga and Subash who were supposed to catch us up to hurry them along because it was already mid-afternoon.
Walking up through the forest I saw large plants of Clematis buchananiana in fruit and flower growing up and over the Rhododendrons but as I said I had no enthusiasm for collecting.
I eventually caught up with Colin at a large landslide where the river in spate had clearly done some damage. Again despite the large population of Meconopsis paniculata in flower and fruit these were left well alone in favour of getting to camp. We had also caught up with the porters who were complaining about the length of the day and altitude gain. They were carrying 40kg so it was justified!
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Meconopsis paniculata
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I get up to camp and dumped my gear and went back down to buddy Colin the rest of the way. When we got back up to camp I got him a seat and asked the kitchen guys for some hot juice for him while a couple of us got his tent up. Once Colin was on his back, and with it only an hour and a bit until it got dark I headed back down to find out how far away Patrick, Ganga and Subash were.
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Colin making the best of it once in camp.
I met Patrick and his Sherpa assistant not too far down but then carried on a bit further to meet Tenzing who assured me Ganga and Subash were just 10min behind him. Knowing they would make camp before it got dark and headed back to catch up with Patrick to take one of his bags off and lighten his load.
Once back in camp Patrick and I started on the day’s specimens. Less than half way through processing these it had gotten dark and I realised our Nepalese counterparts had not yet appeared. I grabbed my head torch and went out to find out what was happening. It turned out they were 50m below the camp exhausted. The kitchen crew had taken them down tea and biscuits to give them some energy so they could make it up the rest of the way.
When they got to camp they got stuck in with the processing with Patrick and I went off to set up the drying tent with Tenzing and a couple of the field assistants by torchlight. None of us had built the extendable drying frame yet and it took us a while to work out how it was done. By 9.30pm we had finished processing the specimens and got the drying process going; I was exhausted and could barely speak let along think but at least dinner was ready and waiting.
As this was alot of text here is one of my favourites from this camp even if it was a haven for leeches
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Jurinea macrocephala
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Jurinea macrocephala close-up
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Super picture Alan and all the details hope Colin recoverd well we know how difficult the local bugs are, cheers Ian the Christie kind
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Great pictures, Alan!!
I can add that despite its powerful bite, Girardinia diversifolia, is one of the most important wild vegetables in Nepal (ref. Plants and People of Nepal by Manandhar, an impressive ethnobotanical work), one of 4 leafy greens singled out in the book's introduction. In the species account it states " Young leaves and inflorescences are cooked as a green vegetable. Roasted seeds are pickled."
Nettles are collected in Nepal with the help of bamboo or iron pincers...
Have for a long time wanted to try this in my edible garden, along with New Zealand's "Death Nettle", Urtica ferox, which I do have ;) .....but I've never seen seeds.
I mention this species in my book to be published in about 3 weeks in the UK in the section on vegetables from the Himalaya: http://permanentpublications.co.uk/port/around-the-world-in-80-plants-an-edible-perennial-vegetable-adventure-for-temperate-climates-by-stephen-barstow/ (http://permanentpublications.co.uk/port/around-the-world-in-80-plants-an-edible-perennial-vegetable-adventure-for-temperate-climates-by-stephen-barstow/)
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Wow, great to hear about the imminent arrival of your book, Stephen - that bears repeating !
....... in my book to be published in about 3 weeks in the UK in the section on vegetables from the Himalaya: http://permanentpublications.co.uk/port/around-the-world-in-80-plants-an-edible-perennial-vegetable-adventure-for-temperate-climates-by-stephen-barstow/ (http://permanentpublications.co.uk/port/around-the-world-in-80-plants-an-edible-perennial-vegetable-adventure-for-temperate-climates-by-stephen-barstow/) 8) 8)
The cover of Stephen's book:
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Great pictures, Alan!!
I can add that despite its powerful bite, Girardinia diversifolia, is one of the most important wild vegetables in Nepal (ref. Plants and People of Nepal by Manandhar, an impressive ethnobotanical work), one of 4 leafy greens singled out in the book's introduction. In the species account it states " Young leaves and inflorescences are cooked as a green vegetable. Roasted seeds are pickled."
Nettles are collected in Nepal with the help of bamboo or iron pincers...
Nice One. Yeah I have used Manandhar's book on a number of occassions it is a fantastic publication.
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We had an enforced rest day at Phalgune to let Colin recover before we went over the pass. It turned out to be a blessing because it allowed us to catch up on data entry and specimen drying.
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The glamour of camp life.
We botanised around camp collecting a good number of interesting species.
Silene helleboriflora being my favourite of the site because it was hard won! Initially going up a steep gully and failing, then going up the trail and then down the gully ridge to get at it and failing and eventually going up a parallel gully and then contouring round.
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Silene helleboriflora insitu
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Me doing my Indiana Jones plant collecting of the Silene.
With the stress of the previous day I had not collected the Meconopsis paniculata in favour of getting to camp with Colin and daylight running out. But I went back down the trail with Dawa Sherpa to collect some specimens.
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The great Meconopsis paniculata massacre of 2014
Patrick had a productive day collecting on the slopes and gullies around camp. Collecting a number of Juncus species, Neottianthe calcicola, Pedicularis pennelliana and P. mollis. P. anserantha
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Neottianthe calcicola
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Alan
Wonderful diary and some amazing plants. Keep it coming please.
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The day started with heading up to Phalgune Dhuri which on the map was a mere 3900m, but once at the pass our GPS’ were telling us different 4100m! You do not need that first thing in the morning. The pass was heavily grazed but there were still a good number of flowering herbs in the short turf. Pedicularis hoffmeisterii and P. klotzschii subsp. lutescens and Pedicularis hookeriana. Cyananthus lobatus and C. microphyllus. Bistorta vivipara, Cremanthodium arnicoides.
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Flowering sub-alpine turf at 4100m
It almost felt like a scene from the Alps with cattle lazing about, bells chiming away, the Leontopodium growing around us in the turf and having a happy man of the Alps with us!
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Patrick giving us a lecture in Pedicularis morphology
Most of the rest of the day was spent walking across sub-alpine meadows and grassland before we dropped back initially into the forest of Betula and Rhododendron which changed to Abies forest. Despite generally losing altitude it did feel like a lot of up and down.
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Cremanthodium arnicoides
Coming down through a particularly steep section of the Abies forest we start hearing whooping and yeee-hawing from Patrick. When we eventually caught up with him he was verging on ecstatic. He’d found some epiphytic Pedicularis scullyana growing alongside ferns and orchids on Abies. This was one of his taxonomic mysteries that he had hoped to answer and now had.
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Epiphytic Pedicularis scullyana growing on Abies
We could see the camp looking down through the Abies near the small village of Thankur which was in a beautiful valley surrounded by steep sided slopes covered in Abies forest and with the wooden shingled farmsteads, small fields and grazing horses; it felt more like a scene from the Rockies than the Himalaya.
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Thankur and our camp at about 3100m
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Next morning we continued through the Abies forest descending nearly 500m to the Ghasdung Khola. The dense forest was predominantly Abies grandis but there were also Acer, Sorbus and Pinus wallichiana. On our way down to the river we collected, a few species of Ribes and Rubus (we ate about as much as we collected). There were also plants like Triosteum himalayanum, Rosa serica in fruit, Ligularia fischeri, Allium wallichiana and even Leycesteria formosa - that is relatively common in UK cultivation and odd to see in the forests of Rukum
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Triosteum himalayanum
As soon as we crossed the Ghasdung Khola Colin spotted a Clematis and I was quickly able to tell him whatever it was it was new from Nepal (very likely to be new taxa). The forest changed immediately and dramatically once we had gained a little altitude. This south facing slope was hot and dry and was predominantly Quecus semecarpifolia with its acorns and dry brown leaves scattered across the trail.
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Quercus semecarpifolia forest
The rest of the afternoon was a hot slog of a walk up through the open Quercus forest to Kayam at 3100m, collecting a number of plants that we hadn’t seen in the cool damp north facing Abies forest: Pedicularis bifida, Satyrium nepalense, and Phlomis setigera.
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Two colour variants of Pedicularis bifida
The view of the ridge at Kayam was more how I picture the Himalaya; the steep southwest facing slope dropping 700m back down to the Ghasdung Khola and the gentle sloping pasture on the northeast slope surrounded by forest.
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Kayam at 3152m and our camp in the distance.
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The day started walking along the ridge through the autumnal feeling Quercus forest. On reaching then end of the ridge we began to drop steadily down through pasture and patches of remnant Pinus wallichiana forest and then fields of Maize until we reached Pelma. On the edges of the remnant forest and on field boundaries we collected a number of plants like Clematis buchanania and Clematis connata growing side by side, which I always find odd that such closely related species can co-habit the same niche and in this case physical space without hybridising or one out-competing the other.
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Potentilla atrosanguinea growing around farmhouses outside Pelma.
We dropped down further to the Pani Dal Khola through dense bamboo forest. We crossed the river over a well-rotted bridge surrounded by huge cliffs. The cook staff that I was with signed themselves then ran across the bridge.
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The rotten bridge
There was then a steep walk up a gully to regain the altitude we’d lost to cross the river. The gully had an interesting flora untouched by the burning that is probably because it’s too damp for the fire to take hold. Once we had regained some of the altitude we contoured round the hillside above the Pani Dal Khola where the most attractive find was Spathoglottis ixioides
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Spathoglottis ixioides
We walked mostly through grassy slopes but as we gained some altitude we headed back into forest for a while. This section of the trial was atrocious, bits where the path had fallen away and a section of a huge landslide with entire sections of the path just gone.
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Large landslide near before the Him
We walked on through the village of Him and eventually reaching the School at Guibang and our campsite for the evening.
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Guibang School in the morning.
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That Silene is wonderful even if it hadn't been difficult :)
I was interested to see you mention Ligularia fischeri as I bought seed of this with the help of a Korean friend in a Korean vegetable catalogue (see picture) in 2012, an important perennial vegetable in that country and my first Ligularia meal was this spring and excellent it was too....it didn't make it to my book as I discovered it too late, but it would have done if I'd known, also fast growing from seed and yielding well.....
I see in Flora of China that it has a wide range although there is some disagreement on whether L. splendens should be separated out: http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200024220 (http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200024220)
I've just noticed that it is in Manandhar as a leafy vegetable....didn't think to look in there as Nepal is far from where I thought it's wild range was, so thanksto drawing my attention to it :) Yes, it's one of the best ethnobotanical books I've come across!!
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It was supposed to be a short walk from Guibang up to the head of the valley about 400m above to reach Duli, where we’d have a rest day and catch up on drying plants and data entry. However on reaching the village we found a debate raging amongst our trek staff over the merits of moving on and not staying. It turned out that the major contentious issues were animal dung in the water supply and the village house of ‘ill repute’. We didn’t stay.
We did however collect Rheum acuminatum which covered and large boulder scree. There were also hundred if not thousands of stalks drying in on the rafters of the houses in Duli.
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Rheum acuminatum
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Rheum drying
As we were not meant to be walking particularly far we didn’t have food for a day’s walking so we stopped with the cook staff a recently vacated camp in the forest. The fires were still smouldering so we got them going again and had a pleasant couple of hours sitting on the ridge just waiting for lunch of Dal Bhatt and curry. As we were on a ridge the forest when looking NW was Betula and Rhododendon and looking SE the Forest was Tsuga and Picea within 10m of each other.
There was an amazing colony of Primula reidii on a wet mossy rock face.
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The rest of the afternoon was spent walking along the ridge through Betula forest. We collected Codonopsis grey-wilsonii. The monsoon hit like clockwork about 2pm when the ridge was engulfed in cloud. The trail continued along open slopes until we came to two drystone pillars where we began to drop down again. The area around the pillars was very heavily grazed and there was nothing to see as the vegetation was Rumex nepalensis and Impatiens glandulifera.
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From here it was downhill, through degraded pasture until we met the Sen Khola and our camp on the banks. It had been another long day.
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What are the dried Rheum stems used for, Alan? ( I may have missed you telling us this before- if so, SORRY! :-[ )
Was it not very irresponsible for the previous occupants of that camp to leave fires smouldering?
I know it gets very wet there, but an unattended fire can be disastrous anywhere, in my view. :-\
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What are the dried Rheum stems used for, Alan? ( I may have missed you telling us this before- if so, SORRY! :-[ )
Was it not very irresponsible for the previous occupants of that camp to leave fires smouldering?
I know it gets very wet there, but an unattended fire can be disastrous anywhere, in my view. :-\
I assume the same reason we have Rhubarb? Crumble!!! but definitely for eating.
That forest was absoluely sopping. There was no chance of fire taking hold at that time of year.
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I assume the same reason we have Rhubarb? Crumble!!! but definitely for eating.
That forest was absoluely sopping. There was no chance of fire taking hold at that time of year.
Of course! I must be daft - it's just that we always have it fresh picked. I was thrown by the mass picking/drying. When I think of all the other fruits that dry so well it really shouldn't be a surprise!
I did wonder if it might be the case that the monsoon would have rendered the place wet enough to be safe....... :-[
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Wikipedia:
The root is often 1–2 m (3–7 feet) long and as thick as an arm, and bright yellow inside. The stems are pleasantly acidic, and they are consumed by the local people, who call the plant Chuka. The hollow of the stem contains a good deal of limpid water. After flowering, the stem lengthens and the bracts separate one from another, turning a coarse red-brown. As the fruit ripens, the bracts fall away, leaving a ragged-looking stem covered with panicles of deep brown pendulous fruits. As Hooker put their appearance: "In the winter, these naked black stems, projecting from the beetling cliffs, or towering above the snow, are in dismal keeping with the surrounding desolation of that season.".
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Of course! I must be daft - it's just that we always have it fresh picked. I was thrown by the mass picking/drying. When I think of all the other fruits that dry so well it really shouldn't be a surprise!
Manandhar's plants and people of Nepal have a couple of species listed as eaten for food. R. acuminatum and R. australe is down as pickled before eating where as R. nobile can be eaten fresh. R. australe and R. nobile also down as having medicinal uses like smoking dried leaves to relieve sinus problems. Each to their own.
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It must be Christmas. Two posts in one day...
We had a rest day to catch up on admin and processing specimens at our Sen Khola Camp. This was also to allow us a bit of acclimatising time as we'd be heading over 4500m the next day.
The following day left camp at 7.15am and head along the trail following the Sen Khola until it abruptly turned NW and we start gaining altitude. It was slow going and we were all feeling the lack of air. It was a convenient reason to stop and collect the odd plant to catch our breath.
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Out of breath Scotsman with a knife (what a sterotype) about to dissect a Meconopsis horridula to make a couple of specimens from a single plant.
One of our Nepalese colleagues, Ganga Dhutt, seemed to be the only one with energy and went bounding off finding the Meconopsis horridula and Saussaurea graminifolia.
We past an area strewn with the remains of a camp and were told it was the scene of a battle, including graves, where the Nepalese army had assulted a Maoist camp.
The vegetation beyond there changed from subalpine pasture to a true alpine flora at about 4200m. We began to see more Meconopsis horridula, Sausaurrea gossipifera and Sausaurrea graminifolia and Corydalis macrocaylx. We also walked through a 20 minute hail storm with booming thunder which heading up to the watershed at 4500m.
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Hail storm
We stopped for camp at 4300m, the air was cold and the vegetation was sparse because of late snowbeds on the North facing slopes only recently melted from how flattened the vegetation was. The only really interesting plants to be found around camp were the fragrant Rhododendron lepidotum and Aconitum hookeri.
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Saussurea gossypiphora
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Meconopsis horridula
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Corydalis macrocaylx - find of the day
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Fantastic report and pictures Alan you must be used to the rain 9it is the same in Forfar busy to tidy up the garden for winter love the Meconopsis pictures, cheers Ian the Christie kind
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Winter time is ideal to do some reading and also read the things you've missed in the busy season .
What a nice report , thanks for sharing this Alan . And that Corydalis is a fantastic plant ! :o
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Manandhar's plants and people of Nepal have a couple of species listed as eaten for food. R. acuminatum and R. australe is down as pickled before eating where as R. nobile can be eaten fresh. R. australe and R. nobile also down as having medicinal uses like smoking dried leaves to relieve sinus problems. Each to their own.
As in most cultures around the world, vegetables were either preserved by lactofermentation or by simple drying. In Nepal, rhubarb and other spring greens were made into Gundruk - first fermented and unlike, for example, kimchi in Korea, gundruk is dried after the fermentation. When rhubarb first came to Europe it was eaten as a vegetable (I have old recipes) or as a medicinal. Similarly, where the wild species of Rheum grew in Asia, it was wild foraged as a vegetable not as a "fruit" as it's now considered, wrongly.. :)
I don't know if it's the same over there in the UK, but here in Norway there are lactofermentation courses being held regularly all over the country - a new phenomenon over the last 4 years or so! Before that, it was only cabbage that was fermented as sauerkraut...
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......... where the wild species of Rheum grew in Asia, it was wild foraged as a vegetable not as a "fruit" as it's now considered, wrongly.. :)
Well, you can say that Stephen - but I don't have custard on my vegetables ........
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...nor do I, Maggi :)
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That's a relief ......I hadn't seen any mention of it in your rather excellent book. I'm sure I would have noticed if you had advocated custard on parsnips.... ::)
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Winter time is ideal to do some reading and also read the things you've missed in the busy season .
What a nice report , thanks for sharing this Alan . And that Corydalis is a fantastic plant ! :o
Thanks Kris. There is more to come so there is still time to get bored of it.
And yes the Corydalis was a great wee thing.
Al
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Fantastic report and pictures Alan you must be used to the rain 9it is the same in Forfar busy to tidy up the garden for winter love the Meconopsis pictures, cheers Ian the Christie kind
Cheers Ian. That hail storm was something else through. I've never experienced weather like it.
Back up to Forfar for the festivities on Monday. Will pop down to the botanists garden at some point to have a nosey.
Al
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Alan - Great to follow this expedition.
Is there a chance we will get to see the Rhododendron lepidotum? Is it not the highest altitude rhodo, but not necassarily so very hardy?
johnw
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Alan's blog post "Into the Flora of megadiverse Himalayas" http://researchhimalaya.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/the-flora-of-nepal-project/ (http://researchhimalaya.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/the-flora-of-nepal-project/)
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Alan - Great to follow this expedition.
Is there a chance we will get to see the Rhododendron lepidotum? Is it not the highest altitude rhodo, but not necassarily so very hardy?
johnw
John sorry for taking a while to reply.
Rhododendron lepidotum in Nepal has an altitudinal range from 2000m - 4650m (6500ft - 15,000ft). We saw it around Kayam at 2600m in an open ridge in Quercus forest and also up at 4300-4400m sub-alpine grassland. Up at that highest altitude they will be under a thick blanket of snow to thermally insulate them from the worst of the cold. So yes not the most hardy despite the altitude.
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Habitat
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Rhododendron lepidodtum
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Alan - Thanks for the pictures, they were well worth the wait. Marvelous colour. That's quite an increible altitudinal range, the lower elevations are a surprise. I do find it hard to imagine a small-leafed lepidote growing in oak woods though, were those woods open to plenty of sunlight?
johnw - -11c & brilliant sunshine
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Alan - Thanks for the pictures, they were well worth the wait. Marvelous colour. That's quite an increible altitudinal range, the lower elevations are a surprise. I do find it hard to imagine a small-leafed lepidote growing in oak woods though, were those woods open to plenty of sunlight?
johnw - -11c & brilliant sunshine
It is possible that they were some sort of "amenity planting" at the deurali. Even so it was growing happily.
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Rhododendron lepidotum growing where the porters were resting.
Al
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Hello Alan once again some fantastic plants and information wish I were with you, cheers Ian the Christie kind
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Exploration Grant recipient's report:
For the full report on his trip to the Baglung, Rukum and Dolpa regions districts of North-west Nepal in 2014 by Alan who received an exploration grant from the SRGC click HERE (http://files.srgc.net/fund/AlanElliottBRDExplorationreport2014.pdf) ( pdf file is approx. 4.51MB)
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Herb rich sub-alpine pasture at Phalgune
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Exploration Grant recipient's report:
For the full report on his trip to the Baglung, Rukum and Dolpa regions districts of North-west Nepal in 2014 by Alan who received an exploration grant from the SRGC click HERE (http://files.srgc.net/fund/AlanElliottBRDExplorationreport2014.pdf) ( pdf file is approx. 4.51MB)
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Herb rich sub-alpine pasture at Phalgune
That was quick!
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I'm only just above sea-level, Al - no altitude sickness to slow me down! ;)
By the way, Folks- please remember Alan's reports in the form on his Darchula Trip:
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9543.0 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9543.0) - all very interesting
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Ok its been a while since I posted anything. So these next few images are from when we dropped from 4534m (14800ft) at the Jangla Bhanjang to Beluwa at 2334m (7650ft) and the Thuli Bheri Nadi river. The drop into Dolpa district meant we were now in the markedly drier Transhimalaya.
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Clematis graveolens
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Clematis tibetana brevipes
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Clematis grata
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We followed the Thuli Bheri nadi until we met confluence with the Suli gad which marked the beginning for the Phoksumdo National park.
As I said in the report the inital bit of the national park is really trashed. However once you reach the treeline the mix forest was something special, huge old specimens Cupressus tortuosa.
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Cupressus tortuosa
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Anemone vitifolia
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Platystemma violoides
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Suli Gad riverine forest.