On a frosty late February morning in Thimphu, towards the end of winter, I set off on a drive to the forests beyond the town, looking for some foliage and berries to put in vases for a dinner party at home that evening. I was living in Thimphu then, and our garden was brown and bare, with not a single flower in bloom. After about 40 minutes, when we reached the Dochu La pass, I got down from the car to forage in the surrounding forest. A heady scent filled the air and the source soon became apparent — shrubs growing by the side of the road, covered with white flowers tinged with pink. Perfect for filling those empty vases, I thought, as I cut a few branches, put them in the back seat of the car and began driving back to Thimphu. Within a few minutes I found myself nodding off. A little while later, the driver stopped abruptly, saying he was feeling both dizzy and sleepy. We got back to Thimphu that day with the windows rolled down and the icy air rushing in to keep us awake. As we learnt later, it was the scent of those flowers — the daphne — exerting their narcotic effect, that had sent us into a stupor.

One of the first flowers to appear in spring, the daphne is a prized plant in Bhutan — its bark has been used for centuries to make paper for writing religious texts, because the paper is exceptionally durable, and also because it has a toxic property that repels termites, silverfish, bookworms and other pests that eat paper. The vases at home stayed empty that evening — my dinner guests might have fallen face down into the soup — but the experience sparked off an interest in Bhutanese flora that would bring me hours of joy and take me back repeatedly to Dochu La or other spots in western Bhutan that are a botanical paradise.

The Eastern Himalaya have long been renowned for the wealth of their flora, and have attracted botanists from all over the world. Many prized garden flowers in the West today, among them clematis, primroses and different varieties of rhododendron, lily and poppy were cultivated from plants and seeds collected in this region by legendary plant hunters and botanists like Joseph Hooker, Kingdon Ward, Ludlow and Sheriff. Today, western Bhutan remains among the best areas to see this region’s incredibly rich variety of alpine flora, since deforestation and unplanned development have destroyed large areas of their habitat in Sikkim and Nepal. In Bhutan, in contrast, an enlightened policy of environmental conservation has ensured the protection of their natural habitats, and retained close to 70 per cent of the country’s territory under forest cover.

Spring is a particularly beautiful time to explore Bhutan’s floral wealth. The season arrives with dramatic suddenness in the Thimphu and Paro valleys by the end of February or early March. One morning you wake up to see the bare branches of the willow trees covered in tiny green leaves, the forsythia bushes sprouting little yellow buds, and the primula denticulata, with its pretty lilac flowerhead, pushing its way through frost-covered ground. This primula and the daphne are among the first harbingers of the end of winter, curtain-openers for a series of more spectacular alpine flora that will be in bloom until May. By the second half of March at the Dochu La (3,150m), vivid bursts of scarlet amidst the dense forest signal the flowering of the first rhododendrons, together with the magnificent white blossoms of the magnolia campbellii profusely covering tall, still leafless trees. Etched against the cloudless, brilliant blue sky, these two trees in bloom are a heart-stopping sight. Bhutan has some 50 varieties of rhododendron which continue to flower for the next two months, the scarlet ones succeeded by deep pink, pale pink, lavender, burnt orange, white and yellow species.

Meanwhile, other flowers are beginning to appear — the bright yellow blooms of piptanthus with its silvery leaves, the pieris formosa with its red leaves and spray of little white flowers, the pussy-willow catkins glittering like crystals in the sunshine; and the prunus carmesina, a rare wild cherry with deep pink blossoms (look out for it at Lamperi, about 10km beyond Dochu La.)

By early May it is time to head towards the Chele La pass (4,000m), about 40km from Paro on an excellent road. The drive, through forests of oak, maple, pine, fir, larch and rhododendron, offers some stunning sights — cascades of the wild white climbing rose, rosa brunonii, festoon pine trees in the early part of the drive. A fabulous flowering tree to look out for on this route is the enkianthus deflexus with its clusters of waxy, bell-like flowers, pale orange tinged with green.

More primulas are now in bloom, especially where the snow melt has created little streams. Towards the end of May or early June, the forest floor is covered with the deep blue Iris clarkei, often interspersed with fiery orange euphorbia — a sight to awaken your inner Van Gogh. If it’s a clear day up at Chele La (it often is in this season, especially before noon) you’ll get magnificent views of Mt Chomolhari and Jichudrake. And you’ll certainly see herds of yaks grazing on the slopes around the pass — by the end of June they will move up to higher pastures where, once the rains set in, Bhutan’s dazzling variety of meadow flowers will have begun to bloom. To see those at their best, start planning another trip to Buddha’s Own Country in August.

(The writer is consulting editor at Penguin India)

Travel Log

Visit

To see spring flowers, visit between early March and mid June.

Get there

Druk Air (drukair.com.bt) has regular flights from Delhi and Kolkata to Paro. You can also go by train to New Jalpaiguri, and drive up to Thimphu (6 to 8 hours) from there. Both the Dochu La and Chele La passes can be visited as day trips from Thimphu or Paro. It can be cold and windy up at the Dochu La and Chele La passes, so make sure you are warmly clad.

BLink tip

Take with you a copy of Concise Flowers of the Himalaya by Oleg Polunin and Adam Stainton, which will help you identify every flower you see.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW