Finding Primula stirtoniana (updated)

As for any species, understanding comes with information and particularly so for the rare Primula stirtoniana. In 2006, I grew a plant identified as P. stirtoniana and at the time I was happy enough with that identification as it matched roughly the drawing in John Richards’ book and the description of leaves “only some of which tend to be lobed”.  However, since that time I have read the description by Smith and Fletcher which describes the plant as having the leaves “particularly the upper two-thirds, strongly incised-dentate”. Since I am a visual person, it wasn’t until I saw a painting by Lawrence Greenwood that I was able to get a good idea of what this species looked like (and realise that wasn’t what I was growing). The type material is sparse, but now that it is available online, the description of the species is much easier to match especially when you look at the dissected plant on the isotype E00024518 at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Courtesy: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Type Location
According to the protologue in J.Linn. Soc., Bot. 20: 15. 1882 and repeated in Hook.f. Fl.Brit. Ind. iii. 495 , the type is “G. Watt, Kanglanamo Pass, alt. 14,000-16,000 ft.” in the Sikkim Himalaya. According to Smith and Fletcher, this species was discovered by George Watt (#5419) in 1881 on the Surkia La, near the Kanglanama La, on the NW Sikkim-Nepal border. I have been unable to find the exact location of the Surkia La, but according to Douglas Freshfield in his book “Round Kangchenjunga” he says “it is doubtful if the Kangla Nangmo is a pass at all. It appears rather to be the name given to the plateau N of the Kang La, which sends down glaciers on both sides of the ridge”. So that means that our type location is somewhere near 27°31'21.26"N 88° 3'35.88"E. From Smith and Fletcher, Primula stirtoniana was also collected on the Pey-kiong-la near Jongri (Dzongri) (exact location unknown) and the Nyegu La (exact location unknown) near the Nepal frontier and then at Dungshinggang (Mountain), Bhutan by Ludlow & Sherriff. Unfortunately, other than a low resolution, black and white image in Fletcher’s “A Quest of Flowers” pg 52, taken by Sherriff at Dungshinggang, I have no images of P. stirtoniana from these locations.

A Species From Arunachal Pradesh

In 2011, images came back from Arunachal Pradesh between Lugathang and the Zelung La of plants which looked like Primula waddelili though the corollas did not have the characteristic deeply bifid lobes. Looking at Ludlow and Sherriff’s field notes revealed a collection #751, from Mago on August 2, 1934 which had been identified as P. stirtoniana. On August 1, 1934 Ludlow and Sherriff had parted ways for a few days with Ludlow making his way from Mago toward Lugathang which is about 11kms away in a direct line but there is no indication in the field notes which person made this collection. This collection isn’t online but a friend was able to go to the British Museum and photograph it. The collection is only one small plant but is seems to match the 2011 images.

Careful tracking of the Ludlow & Sherriff 1934 route and comparing with the field notes reveals that collection #751 was made by Sherriff near to the Debong La, just to the west of Dyuri and about 9 miles in a straight line from from the Zelung La.

So is this species from Arunachal Pradesh a match for P. stirtoniana?
Firstly we can look at the protologue for Primula waddellii in Notes of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 9: 56. 1915 in which Balfour speculates that P. waddellii may be a microform of P. stirtoniana but that there are differences, mainly in the leaves. I have images of Primula waddellii from Bhutan and Tibet, so below are a series of images comparing P. waddellii to our mystery plant which I will call “aff stirtoniana”.

Calyx: aff stironiana has ovate-lanceolate lobes with an acute apex whereas waddellii has lanceolate lobes with a blunt apex. Both are scabrid.

Flower: purple color, white eye, hairs in the throat compare favorably; shape varies in aff stirtoniana but never reaches the extreme of P. waddellii.

Leaf: Both are spoon shaped with teeth in the apex or upper half and are scabrid. The number of teeth vary from 3-7 in aff stirtoniana and 6-14 in waddellii.

 

Toshio Yoshida Images

Toshio has three images labelled P. stirtoniana from Nepal on his website. Though the resolution isn’t enough to see fine detail, in Y00673, in Y00672, we see leaves with finely incised apex. In image Y00674 we see a species with oblanceolate leaves and obvious runners. Though P. flagellaris is not listed for Nepal, this image matches that species and we shouldn’t be surprised that flagellaris is here as the type location is in the Zemu Valley, Sikkim, only 40 Kms to the NE of Kanglanamo – so if P. stirtoniana can be in Nepal, so can P. flagellaris. Hara lists specimens of P. stirtoniana from West, Central and Eastern Nepal in “AnEnumeration of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, V3”.

 

Conclusion

As I said to start, the more information we have, the better will be our conclusions. Our mystery plant from Arunchal Pradesh seems to approach more closely P. stirtoniana but there is a lot of variation in the plants – more so than can be illustrated here. A return visited to the type location at Kanglanamo, and a good set of detailed images would certainly help the situation. Also being able to review the existing herbarium material (which is not online) and to see detailed images from Nepal and Bhutan of P. stirtoniana and P. waddelli would be beneficial.

 

But what was the plant you originally grew? And how does this relate to the similar species P. muscoides? I guess that will be another post!

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New Flora of Nepal

At present, the only online information on Primula specific to Nepal is in the form of an online checklist at Efloras.

That is changing with the new Flora of Nepal project, created by a partnership between the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, several Nepalese institutions: Government of Nepal; Nepal Academy of Science and Technology; Tribhuvan University, and the University of Tokyo.

The website is available at www.floraofnepal.org

This new flora will be published in a ‘dynamic flora model’ so that if new specimens/information means an update is required, then that information will be incorporated into the accounts and the newest versions will be made freely available online as pdfs in the PDF account library.

The account of Primulaceae is not completed, and there is no completion date available, but other Families are done such as Papaveraceae which includes the popular Genus Meconopsis. The Online Flora Accounts provides a clickable key which leads to a taxon description, distribution map, notes and lower taxon. Extensive field work is accompanying this Flora, and specimen data, both new and historical, can be mapped in Data. Some Blog posts about the field work are on the Botanics Stories webpage at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh website.

It will be wonderful to have this new Primula knowledge base available.

 

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Britain and Tibet by Julie G. Marshall

I finally finished going through this book! It isn't a book that you read, not one with a story, but rather it is a list of publications where the subject is the relationships between Britain and Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan from 1765-1947. There are 4020 references listed and they are grouped according to area, people and time period. Why was I looking through this? Because this is a great resource to find obscure journal articles about early exploration in the Himalayas. Often these articles have maps drawn from the geographical knowledge of the time and are annotated with place names as they were know then. This is very helpful when you are trying to trace the locations for Primula collections made in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the places have changed names or don't exist any more. Also these articles detail the common routes travelled in those days and this also provides a clue as to where Primula collections have been made. Of course many of the references are not available online, so it is quite a process to find ones of interest. Thankfully each section in the book has a preamble about the subject of the references that follow and most references are detailed with a short note on the contents and any maps included.

Many interesting articles can be found in "The Geographical Journal" which can be accessed through JSTOR. If you sign up for a free account you are able to view up to three articles at any given time every 14 day period.

Another source of articles is "The Himalayan Journal" which can be accessed through the Himalayan Club. Unfortunately, with a recent reorganisation of their archive, images accompanying the articles are no longer available. However the excellent website "PAHAR mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset" has old journals including this one with the images. This site also has an extensive library of old maps.

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Joseph Rock

Joseph Rock (1884-1962) was a botanist and explorer whose connection to Primula is through his botanical collections made in SW China (Yunnan, Sichuan, SW Gansu, E Tibet), Burma and Assam. He collected Primula rockii which is named for him but he also made type collections of P. cerina, P. chlorodryas (now a subsp. of P. dryadifolia), P. coelata, P. fernaldiana, P. saturata, P. tangutica var. serrata, and P. stenocalyx var. luteo-farinosa. He made many more collections of already described Primulas which at present are not available online (as they are not types) with the exception of the Paris herbarium (not searchable). Through the Smithsonian Institution's Field Book Project, Joseph Rock's Field Notes from 1923, collections 8035-9999 and 1928-1929 collections 16000-18850 are online. Joseph is famous for his articles which appeared in National Geographic in 1924-1935 and are available through the National Geographic Virtual Library (may be accessible through your public library for free). Apparently the Royal Geographic Society in London, England has a set of Rock's hand drawn maps (if you have access to these, please email me), and also there are maps available through Harvard (see below).

Si La

How amazed and delighted was I to be standing on the Sila (pass) 28° 2'42.52"N 100°46'8.86"E this spring (2014) which Rock crossed on his way between Youngning and Muli. This is a difficult place to get to and I was hoping that we may find P. gentianoides, a synonym of P. tongolensis, as this pass may be Kingdon-Ward's "summit of the forested range near Yungning" where he collected the type specimen. Unfortunately we had no luck finding this rare species in the short time we had to explore this place.

Other resources:

1. Michael Woodhead's Blog In the Footsteps of Joseph Rock. He is coming out with a book soon.
2. Images by Joseph Rock.
3. Maps drawn by Joseph Rock.
4. A small write-up on Joseph Rock is on the Field Book Project's blog.
5. Another write-up which includes a timeline from 1905 to 1962, from the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.
6. An article on The botanical Legacy of Joseph Rock.

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Style Position

A feature of primulas is their heterostyly nature. Almost all Primulas have a pin form (where the level of the stigma is above the anthers) and a thrum form (where the level of the stigma is below the anthers).

Thrum and Pin forms of Primula polyneura

 

Pin and thrum forms of Primula polyneura

As such, this wouldn’t then be something that would distinguish a species, but a few species are homostylous – that is the stigma and anthers are at the same level. There are long homostlye and short homostyle forms with the level of the stigma and anthers correspondingly high or low in the flower.

Homostyle Primula cuneifolia subsp. saxifragifolia

Homostyle Primula halleri

Examples of Primula homostyle species include: P. simensis, P. cuneifolia subsp. saxifragifolia, P. grandis, P. dumicola, P. klaveriana, P. septemloba, P. homogama, P. hookeri, prenantha, P. annulata. Some species can have heterostylous and homostylous forms including: P. obconica, P. chungensis, P. cockburniana, P. prolifera, P. halleri.

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