Neohymenopogon parasiticus

It has terminal branched flat-topped clusters of creamy-white tubular flowers plus prominent long narrow white bracts. The capsules are cylindrical.  There is a photo in ‘Flowers of the Himalaya’ but that shows the flowers, rather than the young fruits as in your images, making it harder to “match” especially with that image with dark green leaves and the bracts being less prominent.

Most helpful, …, to have several good shots incl. habit, habitat, close-ups of fruits plus upper & lower surface of leaves- rather than only 1 or 2 images shot in less close-up. Keep up the good work.

‘Flowers of Himalaya’ give a distribution of what was Uttaranachal to SW China & SE Asia @ 1600-2800. It is not found in the NW Himalaya. A forest epiphyte. I first observed this next to the Naryanswamy Ashram in Kumaon, close to border with West Nepal.
‘Flora of Kathmandu Valley’ (1986) says it occurs on trunks of tall trees in oak forest @ 1950-2286m. Flowering May-Aug, fruiting Sep-March known as ‘Gabre Kath’.

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Nice to see the images of the plant in flower.  Just goes to show how useful it is to have images both of a species in flower and at fruiting stage (both immature and mature, as there can be significant differences).  Not forgetting the foliage including both upper and lower surfaces of leaves.  One is not always fortunate to come across a plant in perfect flower.  Now that one can take as many photos as one likes with digital cameras, at no additional cost, the way for the future is for keen plant photographers to take a minimum of 10-20 shots per plant (once you get into the habit of doing this, it does not take much time) and for on-line references to be available showing all these characteristics of plants.  If the specimen(s) you come across belong to certain difficult-to-identify genera, then it may be important to concentrate your photography on particular features (if you know which bit is important).

I have made a modest start at preparing such a site for the Flora of Buckinghamshire (the county in the UK I live in, albeit recent boundary charges have occurred). It may come as something of a shock to view so many images per plant but the benefits are enormous and it is the “way forward”, such that increasingly, it will not be necessary to collect voucher pressed specimens for checking in herbaria (though there remains a role and need for herbaria and for the present, such specimens are essential to reliably identify certain genera). I shall keep repeating that I approach plant identification as “detective work” – the more clues and supporting evidence the better.

I am thinking about starting such a site for Ladakh flora (and ultimately the whole of the NW Himalaya) but this is a mammoth task, requiring support (in various ways) plus collaboration with others and for me to devote myself full-time to this (whilst still contributing to efloraofIndia, complementing, not competing with it) for it to make significant progress. We shall see. I consider it important to include images from all available sources such as line drawings, scanned in slides from past decades, written descriptions. Distributions, altitudinal ranges and habitats are vital information.

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Location: Lepchaghat, Darjeeling, India

Date: 24 May  2017

Altitude: 7200 ft.

I think yes, as per the following:

data.rbge.org.uk/bgbase/ high resolution specimen)

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Neohymenopogon parasiticus (Rubiaceae) from Uttarakhand: Aug. 2014_DSR_6 : 2 posts by 2 authors. Attachments (1).

Neohymenopogon parasiticus (Wallich) Bennet of Rubiaceae family is an epiphytic, small shrub. Not common.

Here photographed near Kalamuni, Pithoragarh (Uttarakhand).

It is addition to eFI database

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Thank you very much …, we are coming closer to exact identification..

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I think matches with images at Neohymenopogon parasiticus

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Syn: Hymenopogon parasiticus Wall.

• Location: Bagamati province Central Nepal
• Elevation: 1900m
• Date: last week of Jul 2019

Neohymenopogon parasiticus (Wall.) Bennet Syn: Hymenopogon parasiticus Wall.

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Ohh yes…Previously got only vegetative.. this one with floral parts…

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