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Himalayan Dwarf Mistletoe
''Arceuthobium minutissimum'', known as the Indian dwarf mistletoe or Himalayan dwarf mistletoe, is a leafless parasitic plant of ''Pinus wallichiana''. It is considered the smallest known dicotyledonous plant. Description Individual shoots grow to a height of 5 millimeters, and up to 1 centimeter with mature fruit. Shoots emerge from both the cortex and needles of the host plant. Flowers are monoecious, and seed dispersal occurs in September. Distribution and host species The species occurs in dry forests of the Himalayan mountains at an approximate altitude of 2500–3500 meters. It has been reported in Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Pakistan. ''A. minutissimum'' infects the crowns of trees of all ages. It severely impacts the health of host-trees, and causes the loss of needles. Although ''P. wallichiana'' is the primary host, it has been recorded to infect ''Pinus gerardiana'' in Pakistan. Unconfirmed reports show that it may also infect ''Abies pindrow'' and ''Cedrus deodara''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Wallichiana
''Pinus wallichiana'' is a coniferous evergreen tree native to the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountains, from eastern Afghanistan east across northern Pakistan and north west India to Yunnan in southwest China. It grows in mountain valleys at altitudes of 1800–4300 m (rarely as low as 1200 m), reaching in height. It favours a temperate climate with dry winters and wet summers. In Pashto, it is known as ''Nishtar''. This tree is often known as Bhutan pine, (not to be confused with the recently described Bhutan white pine, '' Pinus bhutanica'', a closely related species). Other names include blue pine, Himalayan pine and Himalayan white pine. Description The leaves ("needles") are in fascicles (bundles) of five and are 12–18 cm long. They are noted for being flexible along their length, and often droop gracefully. The cones are long and slender, 16–32 cm, yellow-buff when mature, with thin scales; the seeds are 5–6 mm long with a 20–30&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Gerardiana
''Pinus gerardiana'', known as the chilgoza pine or ''neja'' is a pine native to the northwestern Himalayas in Afghanistan, northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Waziristan and northwestern India, growing at elevations between 1800 and 3350 metres. It often occurs in association with ''Cedrus deodara'' and ''Pinus wallichiana''. Description The trees are 10-20(-25) m tall with usually deep, wide and open Crown (botany), crowns with long, erect branches. However, crowns are narrower and shallower in dense forests. The Bark (botany), bark is very flaky, peeling to reveal light greyish-green patches, similar to the closely related lacebark pine (''Pinus bungeana''). The branchlets are smooth and olive-green. The leaf, leaves are needle-like, in fascicles of 3, 6–10 cm long, spreading stiffly, glossy green on the outer surface, with blue-green stomatal lines on the inner face; the sheaths falling in the first year. The conifer cone, cones are 10–18 cm long, 9–11&nbs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of Bhutan
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms ''gut flora'' or ''skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de Phyt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of Pakistan
Pakistan's native flora reflects its varied climatic zones, which range from arid and semi-arid to temperate and tropical. For further details of habitats, see Ecoregions of Pakistan, Forestry in Pakistan and Wildlife of Pakistan. Distribution Northern highlands and valleys Pakistan has conifer forests in most of the northern and north-western highlands. These occur from 1,000 to 4,000 m altitudes. Swat, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Malakand, Mansehra and Abbottabad districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province) are the main areas covered with coniferous forests. Pindrow fir ('' Abies pindrow'') and Morinda spruce ('' Picea smithiana'') occupy the highest altitudes, deodar ('' Cedrus deodara'') and blue pine ('' Pinus wallichiana''), the intermediate heights, and chir pine ('' Pinus roxburghii''), occupy the lower areas. Eastern plains and deserts In most of Punjab and Sindh, the Indus plains have many fluvial landforms that support various natural bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arceuthobium
The genus ''Arceuthobium'', commonly called dwarf mistletoes, is a genus of 26 species of parasitic plants that parasitize members of Pinaceae and Cupressaceae in North America, Central America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Of the 42 species that have been recognized, 39 and 21 of these are endemic to North America and the United States, respectively. They all have very reduced shoots and leaves (mostly reduced to scales) with the bulk of the plant living under the host's bark. Recently the number of species within the genus has been reduced to 26 as a result of more detailed genetic analysis. Description They are dioecious, individual plants being either male or female. The fruit is unusual in that it builds up hydrostatic pressure internally when ripe and shoots the single sticky seed up to speeds nearly , an example of rapid plant movement. The lodgepole pine dwarf mistletoe,'' Arceuthobium americanum, has been found to explosively-disperse its seeds through thermogenesis. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasive Species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native species that become harmful to their native environment after human alterations to its food webfor example the purple sea urchin (''Strongylocentrotus purpuratus'') which has decimated kelp forests along the northern California coast due to overharvesting of its natural predator, the California sea otter (''Enhydra lutris''). Since the 20th century, invasive species have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms is a natural phenomenon, but human-facilitated introductions have greatly increased the rate, scale, and geographic range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedrus Deodara
''Cedrus deodara'', the deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar, or deodar, is a species of cedar native to the Himalayas. Description It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching tall, exceptionally with a trunk up to in diameter. It has a conic crown with level branches and drooping branchlets. The leaves are needle-like, mostly long, occasionally up to long, slender ( thick), borne singly on long shoots, and in dense clusters of 20–30 on short shoots; they vary from bright green to glaucous blue-green in colour. The female cones are barrel-shaped, long and broad, and disintegrate when mature (in 12 months) to release the winged seeds. The male cones are long, and shed their pollen in autumn. Chemistry The bark of ''Cedrus deodara'' contains large amounts of taxifolin. The wood contains cedeodarin, ampelopsin, cedrin, cedrinoside, and deodarin (3′,4′,5,6-tetrahydroxy-8-methyl dihydroflavonol). The main components of the needle essential oil include α-terpine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abies Pindrow
''Abies pindrow'', the pindrow fir or west Himalayan fir, is a fir native to the western Himalaya and adjacent mountains, from northeast Afghanistan east through northern Pakistan and India to central Nepal. Description It is a large evergreen tree growing to tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to . It has a conical crown with level branches. The shoots are greyish-pink to buff-brown, smooth and glabrous (hairless). The leaves are needle-like, among the longest of any fir, long, flattened in cross-section, glossy dark green above, with two whitish stomatal bands on the underside; they are arranged spirally on the shoots, but twisted at the base to lie in a flat plane either side of the shoot. The cones are broad cylindric-conic, long and broad, dark purple when young, disintegrating when mature to release the seeds 5–7 months after pollination. The closely related Gamble's fir occurs in the same area but on somewhat drier sites; it differs in shorter leaves 2–4&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Himalayan Mountains
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 peaks exceeding in elevation lie in the Himalayas. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia (Aconcagua, in the Andes) is tall. The Himalayas abut or cross five countries: Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, and Pakistan. The sovereignty of the range in the Kashmir region is disputed among India, Pakistan, and China. The Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the world's major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo–Brahmaputra, rise in the vicinity of the Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin is home to some 600 million people; 53 million people live in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous country, Bhutan is known as "Druk Yul," or "Land of the Thunder Dragon". Nepal and Bangladesh are located near Bhutan but do not share a land border. The country has a population of over 727,145 and territory of and ranks 133rd in terms of land area and 160th in population. Bhutan is a Constitutional Democratic Monarchy with King as head of state and Prime Minister as head of government. Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism is the state religion and the Je Khenpo is the head of state religion. The subalpine Himalayan mountains in the north rise from the country's lush subtropical plains in the south. In the Bhutanese Himalayas, there are peaks higher than above sea level. Gangkhar Puensum is Bhutan's highest peak and is the highest uncl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monoecious
Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is connected to anemophily. It can prevent self-pollination in an individual flower but cannot prevent self-pollination between male and female flowers on the same plant. Monoecy in angiosperms has been of interest for evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin. Terminology Monoecious comes from the Greek words for one house. History The term monoecy was first introduced in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus. Darwin noted that the flowers of monoecious species sometimes showed traces of the opposite sex function. Monoecious hemp was first reported in 1929. Occurrence Monoecy is most common in temperate climates and is often associated with inefficient pollinators or wind-pollinated plants. It may be beneficial to reducing pollen-stigma interferenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cortex (botany)
In botany, a cortex is an outer layer of a stem or root in a vascular plant, lying below the epidermis but outside of the vascular bundles. The cortex is composed mostly of large thin-walled parenchyma cells of the ground tissue system and shows little to no structural differentiation. The outer cortical cells often acquire irregularly thickened cell walls, and are called collenchyma cells. Plants Stems and branches In the three dimensional structure of herbaceous stems, the epidermis, cortex and vascular cambium form concentric cylinders around the inner cylindrical core of pith. Some of the outer cortical cells may contain chloroplasts, giving them a green color. They can therefore produce simple carbohydrates through photosynthesis. In woody plants, the cortex is located between the periderm (bark) and the vascular tissue (phloem, in particular). It is responsible for the transportation of materials into the central cylinder of the root through diffusion and may als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
