Viburnum grandiflorum

Viburnum grandiflorum Wall. ex DC., Prodr. 4: 329 329 1830. (syn. Viburnum foetens Decne.; Viburnum nervosum auct. non D. Don; C.B. Clarke) as per Flora of Pakistan;

Himalaya from Swat eastward to Bhutan, S. Tibet as per Flora of Pakistan;

?Jammu & Kashmir, N-India (Lahul), Bhutan, Sikkim, Chumbi, S-Tibet as per Catalogue of Life;

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Viburnum grandiflorum syn. Viburnum nervosum – indiantreepix | Google Groups : 1 post by 1 author. Attachments (1)

During Sar Pass Trek in May’07.

Here are a few links for its details:

http://www.findmeplants.co.uk/plant-viburnum-grandiflorum-1329.aspx,

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Viburnum+grandiflorum &

http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Viburnum+grandiflorum

Here are some extracts from Wikipedia link on Viburnum :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viburnum

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Kalatop id Winter flower Al030912: This flower starts blooming in November, throughout winter till March.. very scented, especially the leaves the scent of which reminds me of ‘Kadhipatta’ though it is not that…
Location Kalatope, Chamba
Altitude 2100-2800 mts
Habit Shrub
Habitat wild
Height 3-4 mts
season winter

Viburnum grandiflorum I hope.

Thank you sir.. for your guidance.. it seems the fruit of this plant is edible and very sweet…. hmmm.. will try to taste and see.. 🙂

I think you had brought this one for me the day we qwere in Dalhousie…I hope I am not wrong.

Yes … you’re absolutely right… that was the first bloom I had noticed of this flower before winter set in.. it was there on the ‘Tiger trail’ where we wanted to take you… 🙂 And I was wrong in my id… but … as usual set me right…

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Fwd: Viburnum grandiflorum in Kashmir : 4 posts by 2 authors.

Further to my recent post about a cultivated Viburnum flowering in a UK garden (one of the parents being V.grandiflorum), here with 3 images of what I knew as Viburnum foetens, which is now included under V.grandiflorum.

Stewart knew it as Viburnum foetens Dcne. dating back to the account of Jacquemont’s visit to Kashmir in 1830 and considered at that time to be the “Western Form” of V.nervosum.

He noted in Kashmir that it often covered whole hillsides @ 2100-3600m. Easily recognised by its characteristic unpleasant smell. Probably the commonest shrub in its altitudinal zone in the NW. Himalaya, so strange that these are the first images to be posted from Kashmir.

Flowers of the Himalaya said of V.grandiflorum that is was found in forests & shrubberies, common in Nepal @ 2700-3600m from Himachal Pradesh to SE Tibet. The ‘West Himalayan’ form, V.foetens is the commonest undershrub of the coniferous forests of Kashmir. Now regarded

as a form of V.grandiflorum by most botanists.

Flora Simlensis had this under V.foetens – found at Narkunda.

Stewart included Viburnum under the Caprifoliaceae family whilst Flowers of the Himalaya had it under Sambucaceae – now Adoxaceae!

I have to say, knowing Adoxa moschatellina from the UK, I would NOT automatically think of Viburnum belonging to the same family….

Incidentally, Stewart knew Adoxa moschatellina var. inodora from forest humus @ 2700-3450m at Sonamarg, Gulmarg, Pahlgam – another species missing from eFI.

Thanks, … However, Catalogue of Life gives Viburnum foetens Decne. as an accepted name, although The Plant List Ver. 1.1 (based on Tropicos) & Flora of Pakistan give it as a syn. of Viburnum grandiflorum Wall. ex DC.

Glad to learn one source still accepts Viburnum foetens as a separate species – the foliage, when crushed, certainly stinks!

Let us hope other members take more photos of Viburnum in Kashmir to help as evidence to support the view that it should be considered as a separate taxon – i.e. as var. or subsp. foetens, at the very least.

I did take some not terribly good slides of the plant in Pakistan in April 1987, which I do not seem to have scanned in yet. It is my intention to do so and then share on eFI.

I shall also be asking some people I know if they will loan me their slides of Himalayan species taken in the wild and cultivation form use as reference material on eFI – otherwise it goes to waste.

I am also looking to encourage those who have been on treks in different parts of the Himalaya in recent years who took digital images of plants to submit to me then I can select those relevant to eFI.

It is good to put things to good use. There are few purposes to which slides can be put nowadays – most specialist horticultural society journals cannot accept slides as illustrations anymore.

A great pity when resources go to waste.

In the case of plants in cultivation, it is importance to have some idea of provenance and reliable identification – once a plant has been cultivated over a long period it can change it various ways (not just through hybridisation) such that posting images of these would lead to confusion with the genuine wild species.

Plant identification is complicated enough without ADDING to the confusion.

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Fwd: Viburnum grandiflorum in Pakistan : 1 post by 1 author. Attachments (1)

Further to my recent posting of images of this shrub at the fruiting stage in Kashmir taken a few years ago, I attach a single image scanned in from a slide taken during a botanical tour I led in Pakistan in April 1987.

This was in forest not that far from the old British ‘hill-station’ of Murree (the only one in Pakistan territory).

I have a copy of ‘Wild Flowers of Pakistan’ (Nasir & Rafiq, 1995) which named this as V.grandiflorum, though at the time of the tour, I knew it as V.foetens.

The authors state that the pink flowers appear just when the snow melts. There was still a little snow lying when I photographed it, almost 30 years ago.