Joge Tal, Darchula District, Far West Nepal

From the 3nd of July to the 31st of July 2012 I was part of an international expedition exploring the flora of the Darchula district of Far West Nepal. My participation in the expedtion was funded by the Scottish Rock Garden Club and the Davis Expedition Fund.

The expedition was organised and led by the Japanese Society of Himalayan Botany and consisted of six Japanese botanists from various Universities and research institutes in Japan, Dr Colin Pendry and myself from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and two Nepalese members of staff from the Nepalese Department of Plant Resources (DPR) who, like myself were to receive field skills training.

The expedition was part of the Flora of Nepal Project coordinated by the RBGE. All the specimen data, maps and the field images will (eventually) be freely available on www.floraofnepal.org and use the botanical locator link in the top right.

Not all the collection have final identifications but the current tally now stands at 1181 collections covering 121 families and 383 genera of flowering plants and ferns. There are still 129 collections only identified to Family and 52 collections as completely unknown.

The original thread can be found of the SRGC forum but I’ll use this to add new information and talk about some of the interesting plants found during the expedition.

Corydalis elegans