Sambucus species

 

 

 

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unknown plant from Sikkim: Request for identification

Looks like Sambucus adnata

It is Conium maculatum,

its exotic plant.

Conium maculatum is a much smaller plant, flowers in distinct umbels and much narrower delicate leaves. 
 

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Thanks ... Sambuscus is closely related

Are following plants the Conium maculatum?
Shrubs up to 10 feet high
Stem: Angular hairy
Leaves: imparipinnate; two to three pair and last one, deeply serrate, green above paler beneath.
Flowers: Small, white in umbels

No please, Sambucus only.

Since you say it is a shrub up to 10 ft tall, it can be S. nigra (leaflets usually 5, elliptic, flowers yellowish white), or S. canadensis (leaflets usually 7, elliptic-lanceolate, flowers white).
Sambubus adnata (Eastern Himalayas) and S. wightiana (Western Himalayas) are both perennial herbs.
Conium maculatum is a also a herbaceous plant of Apiaceae family with flowers in umbels and much narrower leaflets. I am again attaching the plants.
There is absolutely no reason to confuse between Conium and Sambucus, where flowers are in corymbs (not umbels) and leaves unipinnate with much broader leaflets.

After referring the characters I also decide that it might be Sambucus

REMEMBER: In Emergency wards we were taught that Leaves of Hemlock look remarkably like that of CARROTS… dead give away… PUN intended…. very much intended…
ALSO nothing cute or exotic about it…. sometimes mistaken for queen anne’s lace because of flowers, but the stem gives it away…
… why does one of your pictures have Shankaracharya in the pictures label?

Yes the leaves look like carrot somewhat, although tips are more sharper in Daucus and inflorescence with long dissected bracts much different. In fact leaves of many umbellifers Chaerophyllum, Apium, Daucus, Conium, Anthriscus, Selinum look somewhat similar in appearance.
Shankeracharya is the famous hill in the heart of Srinagar city, with Shankeracharya temple at the top of it, a regular attraction for visiters. In between when Moghuls ruled the country it was known as Takhat-a-Sulaiman.
There is another small hill in the heart of the city known as Hariparbat, with a fort on the top of it and a huge wall (somewhat similar to Great Wall of China) say 40-50 ft tall and 15-20 ft. wide, all around the base of this hill. It is said that this wall was constructed by a king to put people on job at at a time when there was scarcity of employment in the valley.
I am attaching distant shots of both.

Thanks, … so this plant was on that hill!!!
Seems its a hill with undulations with four peaks, I see a transmission tower or such on the distant most peak… we are not leaving any place pristine!!!
The jeel looks neat and clean… no lotuses?

This is rather the one end of a mountain chain, the dip (Aita Gaj Gap) separating this from adjacent Shalimar range has the palace of Maharaja Hari Singh (father of Dr. Karan Singh). Shalimar range with Zabarwan peak and Twin peaks below which we have famous Moghul Gardens Cheshma Shahi, Nishat Garden and Shalimar Garden. On the other side it passes into Dachhigam sanctuary (the place of my Ph.D. work) underlying the famous Mahadev peak (4338 m). I am enclosing somemore photographs.

What was your thesis about ( some flora of Dachigam) ?
is it published in its entirety or were you able to get a few papers out of it?

It was Phytosociological studies of the area: Ecology plus floristics. Yes it was published in the form of a book. “Forest Flora of Srinagar: and the plants of neighbourhood” published in 1976, Plus of course couple of papers.