''Fritillaria cirrhosa'', common name yellow Himalayan fritillary, is an
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
n species of herbaceous plant in the
lily family, native to
China (
Gansu,
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
,
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
,
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
,
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
), the
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
(
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
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 mountainou ...
), and
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
.
[Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, ''Fritillaria cirrhosa''](_blank)
/ref>
''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' produces bulbs up to in diameter. The stem is up to tall, usually with one flower at the top, sometimes two or three. Leaves are narrowly lanceolate, usually opposite, sometimes whorled, up to long. Flowers are bell-shaped, yellowish-green to brownish-purple flowers which are usually with a chequered pattern in dull purple. The plant is commonly found in alpine slopes and shrublands of the Himalayas
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 10 ...
, at altitudes of .extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
, due to be being aggressively collected to make a traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...
, '' Bulbus fritillariae cirrhosae''.
Taxonomy
;Formerly included
Several names have been coined at infraspecific levels (variety, subspecies, and form) for plants once believed to belong to ''Fritillaria cirrhosa''. None of these is currently recognized. Some of the names are regarded as synonyms of ''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' not deserving recognition (see synonym list at right). A few others are considered as belonging to distinct species. Those are:
*''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' var. ''brevistigma'', now called '' Fritillaria yuzhongensis''
*''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' var. ''ecirrhosa'', now called '' Fritillaria sichuanica''
*''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' f. ''glabra'', now called '' Fritillaria taipaiensis''
References
External links
Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae, 川贝母 ''Fritillaria cirrhosa'' D. Don
in Chinese with many color photos
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5504789
cirrhosa
Flora of Asia
Plants described in 1825