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Vaccinium griffithianum

Vaccinium griffithianum Wight, Calcutta J. Nat. Hist. 8: 174 1847. (syn: Epigynium griffithianum (Wight) Klotzsch; Thibaudia camelifolia Griff.; Vaccinium eberhardtii Dop);  

NE-India, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar [Burma] as per Catalogue of Life;

Common name: East-Himalayan Blueberry • Khasi: Soh-ryngkham

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Himalayan plant from Manipur – TQ-mu02 : 15 posts by 6 authors. Attachments (4)

Unidentified plant from Shirui hill, Ukhrul, Manipur. Altitude 1500-2500 m.
Found blooming in early June.
Looks like a shrub. My guess is Vaccinium spp., but that’s just a guess.
Please identify
Or any Pieris sp.
Pl. check 
Thanks … There is a superficial similarity with Pieris formosa, but the leaves don’t really agree and Pieris formosa has lanceshaped sepals whereas in the flowers of my plant, the sepals are triangular.
Vaccinium dunalianum Wight ???
Vaccinium dunalianum has leaf margins not toothed.
Initially I thought so but found an image in web and accordingly I guessed. May be the image in the web is not correct.

Pl. check at Vaccinium
…, I am so happy that you were very specific in saying Himalayan plant from Manipur. Otherwise I know some people who say Plant from Manipur Himalaya and i get a heart attack !!!

🙂

Vaccinium for me too.
Does appear to be Vaccineum. But do not have the flora to determine the correct spp.
If you check the species given under Checklist of Nepal and Flora of China at Vaccinium‎ (which are already not there in our database), you should certainly get the match.

http://picssr.com/tags/vacciniumdunalianum

Looks different from … images.

Vaccinium exaristatum Kurz ??

Flora of China does not give any distribution in India.
Hardly any image on net except this one:
May also check with herbarium specimen at GBIF.
Difficult for me to say yes.

Actually I had verified with POWO and accordingly suggested!Vaccinium exaristatum Kurz 

Other recipients:
plantillustrations.org 379968Vaccinium exaristatum Kurz [as Vaccinium longitubulosum J.J. Sm.] Mededeelingen van ’s Rijks Herbarium, p. 6, fig. 8 () Thank you. Saroj Kasaju
Thanks …!
Vaccinium exaristatum does seem very close to to my plant. The description of the leaves at FOC agrees well, elliptic, with 4-5 pairs of veins, and toothed margin. Triangular sepals, erect or curled-back, triangular flower lobes also agree. The flowers of my plant also appear to agree with the images at earth.com and plantillustrations. Altitude agrees too. To me it looks like Saroj has nailed it!

PS: In the following paper
Vaccinium exaristatum is said to be distributed in Manipur too.

I had sent the images of my plant to Dr. S. Panda, author of the paper I had just mentioned. I received his response just now:

—
Images sent by you belong to Vaccinium griffithianum
—-
I must say that looking at the sketches here and here, I find the agreement to be very good,
especially the leaf size and the arrangement of the leaves!
I think we all missed Vaccinium griffithianum because it is not listed on efloras.org.
It reemphasizes the need for an up to date online Flora of India.

I don’t think it matches with Vaccinium griffithianum rather your 1st image looks matching with image F of page no.  3459 of enclosed journal 
I also initially thought so, and that’s why sent an email to the author. However, if you look at the flowers visible in the image F, they are so tiny compared to the leaves. The earth com image also shows a similar size of the leaves compared to the flowers. In my plant, as you can see, the leaves are not so large compared to the flowers.

Also, the leaflike bracts with each flower, that are visible in my images, are visible the same way in sketches at plantillustrations. For Vaccinium exaristatum it is mentioned that the bracts fall off – so I presumed that maybe in my plant they have not fallen off yet. Flower color in Vaccinium exaristatum is mentioned to be pink, but of course that cannot be taken to be hard and fast. Overall I find the agreement with Vaccinium griffithianum very satisfying, both with the sketches and also with the description in Flora of British India III, page 454.

OK! Please see this also ! 
This wikimedia image doesn’t agree well with the sketches of Vaccinium griffithianum, that’s all I can say.

Ok ! Thank you.

wiki is not always right. lots of mistakes. i find in medicine, and medicinal plants

Agree!

Interesting case, Dear ALL. I like cases like this one: never say never. the FOC link you gave, Mr Garg
shows its data source is Vaccinium exaristatum Kurz, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal. 42(2): 86. 1873.  Notice, its from Journal of the Asiatic Soc of Bengal.
I just downloaded it, (its still trying to complete it after one hour…..).
FOC mentions this: from his long list and essay titled NEW BURMESE PLANTS.
He lists about 6 or 7 Vaccinium species, including Vaccinium exaristatum. 
I have not had time (with all the caregiving duties) to look thru hundreds of pages of this adobe file for a map and distribution if he at all gave one or made one. he does however mention Martaban at the end of the paragraph. so i take it he found it near the gulf of Martaban in Burmah
(remember our Kela we eat : one variety is the martaban… ).
AND my point is, if it was growing in Burma in 1873, it can for sure happen to grow in the northeastern indian states now, what with human and animal migration on foot and animals.
Some of my family and friends’ families walked all the way from rangoon in those days to Assam and then to kolkata and beyond during the war…. as refugees…  there were thousands in the long caravan over the years and there is still a constant flight of people …
just like goats and birds, the human can for sure move seeds and fruits and bacteria and viruses etc etc. this is a point I have been trying to make here for a long time.
lets not say never and get disheartened if we don’t find something in published lists. there is always a first….
so first we have to be very sure of our diagnosis and go from there. may be now it can be listed as being found in INDIA
2 images from book pages inserted.
Attaching here diagrams of these two species. These are from the account of all species of Vaccinium in India written by Dr M.Sanjappa and Dr S.Panda. Dr Panda is the best available expert on Vaccinium in India considering his work on this genus.

May be these diagram are helpful here
Attachments (2)

Very interesting discussions coming up ! Still I could not decide between the two!

May be … could help in remembering more of the details or if he has any herbarium specimen?

Notice the big difference in the two sketches: Flower-spike is about the size of a leaf in Vaccinium exaristatum, whereas it is much longer than the length of a leaf in Vaccinium riffithianum.
You can see from the pictures that I posted, the flowers-spike is much longer than the leaves. So, I have no doubt now that my plant is Vaccinium griffithianum.

Though My guess is not correct I am happy about the outcome of correct ID and fruitful discussions. It is a result of my continuous inquisitiveness!😁

Updated on December 24, 2024

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