This elusive herb 07072012GS1 from Kashmir for ID

[Gurcharan Singh]

Dear friends

This elusive herb I photographed from open hillside above Cheshma Shahi in Kashmir in May. The plant barely up to 80 cm tall had alternate pinnate compound leaves up to 12 cm long, with deeply toothed leaflets, 9-13 in number, with two stipules at base, toothed like leaflets. Flowers unisexual, on long peduncles, forming separate globose heads; male flowers with four broadly ovate to nearly orbicular perianth 3-5 mm long, greenish white with membranous margin, stamens numerous hanging; female flowers with seemingly 4 perianth, appearing three in some, green with membranous margin, persistent; fruits of apparantly four nutlets, fused along raised margin.

    I am not able to even identify the family, which initially I thought to be Urticaceae, but four nutlets are confusing me. Could you kindly provide a clue.   

--

Dr. Gurcharan Singh

Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089

http://www.gurcharanfamily.com/ 
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/

[Gurcharan Singh]

Attaching files now

-- 

Dr. Gurcharan Singh

Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089

http://www.gurcharanfamily.com/ 
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Gurcharan Singh]

Dr. Bruno (Vienna) and Dr. Malecot for Group TAXACOM helped me in identification of this herb as Sanguisorba minor (syn: Poterium sanguisorba L.), a plant distributed in Persia, Waziristan in Pak, Europe but I suppose not reported from India. The leaves of Garden burnet or salad burnet are often used for culinary purposes.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired Associate Professor, 

Department of Botany, SGTB Khalsa College

University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018

Phone: 01125518297; Mobile: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/  

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 7:54 PM, Gurcharan Singh <sing...@gmail.com> wrote:

[J.M. Garg]

POWO gives distribution of only Sanguisorba minor subsp. balearica (Bourg. ex Nyman) Muñoz Garm. & C.Navarro in our area.  

--

With regards,
J.M.Garg

[Gurcharan Singh]

Garg ji

I tried to find differences between subsp. minor and subsp.balearica, but no luck. Maybe someone can help.

Dr. Gurcharan Singh

Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.

https://www.gurcharanfamily.com/

[Vijayasankar]

Interesting find, Gurcharan ji!

There's a 2012 paper reporting Sanguisorba minor from India as a new report, although without mentioning a subspecies name.

https://taiwania.ntu.edu.tw/pdf/tai.2012.57.410.pdf

As per the protologue (https://rjb.revistas.csic.es/index.php/rjb/article/view/228/224), the two subspecies can be distinguished by the following key (Google translate from Spanish text):

*   Plants with urnules with wingless ribs or with narrow and fine wings, with more or less reticulated faces or sometimes with some short teeth -- subsp. minor

** Plants with the always winged urnules -large wings, sometimes very wide, with entire margin to more or less erous- and faces covered with acute ridges -- subsp. balearica (S. minor subsp. muricata Briq., nom. illeg.)

Vijayasankar

[Gurcharan Singh]

Thanks a lot Vijayasankar ji for the key.

This image should seal S. minor subsp. balearica