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Nepal Rowan
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Nepal Rowan
D Native Photo: Sunit Singh
Common name: Nepal Rowan • Nepali: Lekh mayal
Botanical name: Griffitharia vestita    Family: Rosaceae (Rose family)
Synonyms: Sorbus vestita, Sorbus cuspidata, Sorbus nepalensis

Nepal Rowan is a tree or a shrub 7-8 m tall, with branchlets purplish brown when young, grayish brown when old, grayish white woolly when young, hairless when old. Flowers are borne in compound corymbs 5-8 x 7-10 cm, 30-45-flowered. Axis and flower-stalks are initially white woolly, becoming hairless. Flower-stalks are 5-8 mm, flowers 7-8 mm in diameter. Sepal cup bell-shaped, below white velvet-hairy except at base. Sepals are triangular or lanceshaped, 2.5-3 x 1.5-2.5 mm, tip pointed. Petals are white, obovate, 6-8 x 4-6 mm, above finely velvet-hairy, base shortly clawed. Stamens are 20-25, slightly shorter than petals; anthers purple. Styles 3-5, basally fused and woolly. Leaves are simple; leaf-stalk 1-2.5 cm, stout, white woolly; stipules brownish, lanceshaped, 0.8-1.2 cm, membranous. Leaves are elliptic, 12-22 x 7-12 cm, lateral veins 10-15 pairs, nearly parallel and terminating in marginal teeth, below densely white woolly, above finely velvet-hairy when young, hairless, base rounded or broadly wedge-shaped, margin unevenly sawtoothed or doubly sawtoothed, sometimes somewhat lobed, tip pointed or blunt, rarely shortly tapering. Fruit is dark red, spherical, 1.5-2 cm in diam., 3-5-loculed, with many prominent lenticels; sepals persistent. Nepal Rowan is found in the Himalayas, at altitudes of 2000-3500 m. Flowering: June-July.

Identification credit: Sunit Singh, Maheer Thakur Photographed in Madhmaheshwar, Uttarakhand.

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