Could the members of this esteemed group assist in a brief description and possibly ID of these wild flowers I photographed while climbing with Indian Army expeditions to 15000 feet and above to commemorate the 20 years of the Kargil War. How do these flowers survive in the conditions peculiar to these sectors?
And any other general comment on these flowers from the battlefields of Tololing, Khalubar, Bhimbet nallah etc.
Attachments (4)- 273 kb, 1 mb, 2 mb & 2 mb. 

Please post individual sp. separately along with date like elevation, date, location, habitat image
and all aspects of the sp. 

My requirement at the moment is very limited as I am a news journalist. I shall seek detailed answers later on each species. I have indicated the general, contiguous areas and altitudes where I found these flowers. My focus is to explain the war by referring to the flowers found in each of the battlezones. 


1.  Check for Oxytropis spp. Occurring in that area.

2.  Hooker’s Iris (Iris hookeriana)

3.  Clustered Rhodiola (Rhodiola fastigiata)

4.  Can be Alpine aster (Aster flaccidus)


I think Anil Kumar ji is right. It could be Oxytropis tatarica Baker, similar plant O. willamsii, formerly under O. tatarica is distributed in Nepal.

Associated leaves below belong to different plant.

Thank you so much for your enlightened guidance, …
Could also briefly tell me how these flowers survive under so much snow and barren mountains in summer? Or something that distinguished the flora of the Kargil-batalik regions?


Could the members acquainted with the flora of the Mashkoh-Drass-Kargil-Batalik altitudes lend a perspective on my query below? I am writing an article in The Times of India on these flowers and would like readers to know something about the flora of these former battle zones.


I am presently at California, and as such most of my literature is in India. Hope these help
Attachments (5):
Flora of Ladakh-2.htm
1975-Phytosociology Ladakh.PDF
1976-New Records Ladakh.PDF
Flora of Ladakh checklist.htm
Flora of Ladakh-RRStewart.pdf

One more.
Attachments (1)- Ladakh-Wildenowia.pdf

Descriptions here

Thank you very much, …, for these links.
The links have opened an entire new world for me of understanding — having seen and picked those mysterious flowers from battles in 1999 and now, once again, 20 years later.

We have botanised these regions in 1970-72, first time hitchhiking the travel from army vehicles as there was no regular transport to remote areas, walking long distances or even taking pony rides, subsequently in University jeeps. As there were no digital cameras, film cameras were a luxury, we would only collect herbarium specimens to be deposited in University herbarium. We explored Kargil and surroundings, Suru valley extensively.

Thank you, …, for sharing memories of your marvellous botany expeditions, though tough on body and mind, but a lifelong asset of experience and discovery, exhilarating for the soul and a voyage into the unknown that not all whose destiny is so privileged .

Could the members please help ID:
1. First 2 pics, yellow roses (seemed to grow wild in thickets) along the base of Bhimbet nallah (village Trongjun) a few kilometres east of Drass, Kargil. Pics taken on July 5, 2019.
2. Tiny reddish and yellow flowers from Khalubar ridge, Batalik, along snow-melt streams, altitude about 13,000 feet. Pic taken on July 8, 2019.
Attachments (3)

First two represent Rosa, don’t remember any wild rose with yellow double flowers. Third image has red flowers belonging to I hope Rhodiola fastigiata and large yellow flowers in foreground Potentilla argyrphylla.

Thank you, …
‘Rosa’, would imply escapees of cultivated roses or hybrid roses, not wild roses?