A Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Lao PDR 쾨¡¾¡¸©¦º®²õ©ª½¡÷´ó쿪íÀ¯ñ¢Ó ¢º¤ ¦¯¯ 쾸 A Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Lao PDR 쾨¡¾¡¸©¦º®²õ©ª½¡÷´ó쿪íÀ¯ñ¢Ó ¢º¤ ¦¯¯ 쾸 Mark Newman, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Sounthone Ketphanh, Forestry Research Centre, National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute, Laos Bouakhaykhone Svengsuksa, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, National University of Laos Philip Thomas, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Khamphone Sengdala, Forestry Research Centre, National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute, Laos Vichith Lamxay, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, National University of Laos Kate Armstrong, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 20A Inverleith Row Edinburgh EH3 5LR Scotland, UK Reproduction of any part of this publication for educational, conservation and other non-profit purposes is authorised without prior permission from the copyright holder, provided that the source is fully acknowledged. First published 2007 ISBN 978-1-906129-04-0 Front cover: Murdannia macrocarpa D.Y.Hong, Newman et al. LAO 706. Photo, P.I. Thomas, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Back cover: Forest on limestone karst, Mahaxay District, Khammouan. Photo, P.I. Thomas, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh CONTENTS Acknowledgements _______________________________________________ vi Introduction ____________________________________________________ 1 Introduction in Lao _____________________________________________ 17 The Checklist __________________________________________________ 25 1. Spore-bearing Plants _________________________________________ 25 2. Gymnosperms ______________________________________________ 34 3. Angiosperms _______________________________________________ 38 Introduced, Cultivated and Naturalized Species _______________________ 367 Index to the Plant Genera of Lao PDR _______________________________ 375 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project is funded by grant 13007 from the Darwin Initiative to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and its three Laotian partners, namely the Forestry Research Centre, part of the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute, the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science at the National University of Laos and IUCN Lao PDR. We are particularly indebted to the Watershed Management and Protection Authority of Nakai Nam Theun National Protected Area which gave permission to our project to train botanists and collect plants within their area. We thank the Director of the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute and the Dean of the Faculty of Science, National University of Laos who have welcomed this project and ensured that it had all the necessary permits to run smoothly. In Lao PDR we should also like to thank Mr Banxa Thammavong, Mr Singkone Saynhalat and Ms Phayvone Phonphanom from the Forest Research Center, Mr Soulivanh Lanorsavanh and Ms Phetlasy Souladet from the National University of Lao PDR for their enthusiastic support during the project. Mike Callaghan, ECOLAO generously allowed us to use an electronic version of his publication ‘Checklist of Lao Plant Names.’ Joost Foppes and Martin Greijmans from Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers (SNV) and Pierre Bonnet and Pierre Grard from the Orchisasia and BIOTIK projects also provided knowledge, advice and support. Thanks are due to Andrew Ingles and the Bangkok office of IUCN for their support of our collaboration with IUCN Lao PDR. We gratefully acknowledge the support, advice and hospitality of Dr Kongkanda Chayamarit and Dr Rachun Pooma at the Bangkok Forestry Herbarium. We also acknowledge the help of many experts on plant groups who have named plants for us and contributed information. Among the many people who have contributed their time and knowledge are Paul Keßler, Colin Ridsdale, Frits Adema, Cornelius Berg, André Schuiteman, Luc Willemse, Willem de Wilde & Brigitte de Wilde- Duyfjes from Leiden, Sovanmoly Hul from Paris, Christian Puff from Vienna, Robert Faden from the Smithsonian Institute, David Middleton, Martin Pullan, Colin Pendry, Robert Mill, David Chamberlain, Christopher Fraser-Jenkins from RBG Edinburgh and Dave Simpson, Mark Coode and Rafael Govaerts from RBG Kew. We should also like to thank the herbarium staff at RBG Edinburgh for their support and help along with the curators of the herbaria at Leiden and Paris for facilitating access to their collections and information. vi INTRODUCTION General introduction to floristics in Lao PDR The flora of Lao PDR is one of the least known in Asia, though it was revised in the Flore générale de l’Indochine (Lecomte 907–950) and is being revised again in the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam (Aubréville 960–present). The reason this flora is so poorly known is that very few people have spent time studying and collecting in Lao PDR with the result that there are very few herbarium specimens available. Both the flora-writing projects just mentioned have treated Lao PDR together with its neighbours, Cambodia and Vietnam and the great majority of specimens cited in them are from Vietnam where botanical collecting has always been more intensive than in Lao PDR or Cambodia. Nowadays, responsibility for the conservation and management of biodiversity rests with national governments, however, so there is a great need for an overview of the plants of Lao PDR, separate from those of Cambodia and Vietnam. At its simplest, a list of the names of plants occurring in Lao PDR would be extremely valuable. Prior to this publication, two checklists for the plants of Lao PDR have been published. The first, Noms vernaculaires de Plantes en Usage au Laos (Vidal 959), listed more than 000 species with their local names and uses. The second, the Checklist of Lao Plant Names (Callaghan 2004) lists more than 2000 taxa, including more than 300 cultivated and introduced plants. This second checklist is primarily based on Vidal’s work, the fascicles of the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam that have been published since 960 and a range of unpublished field surveys. These checklists focus on useful plants and therefore only represent a limited section of the flora. The need to conserve and manage the flora at national level is now greater than ever so it is even more important to develop a National Checklist. History of plant collecting The first botanical collectors in Lao PDR were all French. Clovis Thorel was the first to make a significant contribution, collecting along the Mekong in southern and central Lao PDR from 866–868. He was followed by Jules Harmand who also worked mainly in the south in the 870s. These pioneers were followed by Henri D’Orléans ( 892, in northern Lao PDR), Clément Dupuy (900, around Louangphrabang) and Jean- Baptiste Counillon (909, along the Mekong). The most prolific collector in the 20th century was Eugène Poilane who worked in various provinces of Lao PDR from the 920s–940s. At the same time Camille Joseph Spire was collecting in Xiengkhouang. More detail about the flora and collectors in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam may be found in the “tome préliminaire” to the Flore générale de l’Indochine (Gagnepain 944). INTRODUCTION Historical events all but prevented botanical work in Lao PDR between World War II and the 990s though some collections were made by Jules Vidal, Pierre Tixier and Allen D. Kerr in the 950s and early 960s. Taking all these Laotian collections together, it is possible to calculate that roughly 3 specimens per 00 km² have been collected in Lao PDR up until the early 990s. For comparison to neighbouring countries and to the United Kingdom, see Table . Table 1. Collection density of herbarium specimens (D.J. Middleton 2003 & pers. comm.). Country No. of specimens per 100 km² Cambodia 4 Lao PDR 3 Vietnam 14 Thailand 50 United Kingdom 1700 Starting around 990, Lao botanists began to intensify their study of the flora, often in cooperation with foreign scientists. They have contributed to accounts of families for the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêt Nam and several broadly based forestry projects with a taxonomic component, such as the DANIDA funded Lao Tree Seed Project (LTSP) that formed part of the regional Indochina Tree Seed Project. A significant output of this project was the manual, Forests and Trees of the Central Highlands of Xieng Khouang (Lehmann et al. 2003). Other studies have focussed on plants which yield non-timber forest products such as rattans or medicinal plants (for example Evans et al. 200, Somsanith Bouamanivong 2005) or on particular National Protected Areas (Maxwell, 999; Chansamone Phongoudom, 2000). Orchids have been of special interest and there has been a considerable increase in our knowledge of this group (Schuiteman & De Vogel 2004, Svengsuksa & Lamxay 2005). This is continuing through the work of the ORCHIS project (www.orchisasia.org/), a collaboration between the National University of Lao PDR (NUoL), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) and the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland. Other botanical work that is currently under way in Lao PDR includes Biodiversity Informatics and co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base (BIOTIK), an EU funded project concentrating on large tree species, and a number of MSc and PhD ethnobotanical projects based at NUoL and Uppsala University. The resurgence of botanical work over the last 5 years has generated a significant amount of new information and it seems timely to produce a new checklist that collates as much of this information as possible. 2 INTRODUCTION A checklist of the vascular plants of Lao PDR This new checklist has been generated from a computer database compiled as part of the Darwin Initiative project Taxonomic Training in a Neglected Biodiversity Hotspot in Lao PDR. The information in this checklist derives from several sources. The first was an electronic version of Latin names contained in Callaghan’s ‘Checklist of Lao Plant Names’ (Callaghan 2004) and generously donated by the compiler. The second is the specimen based accounts in the fascicles of the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam that have either been published since 960 or are due to be published in the near future.