Spenceria ramalana

Spenceria ramalana is native to Bhutan and China (in the provinces of Sichuan, Tibet, and Yunnan).

Both varieties of S. ramalana have been used locally in traditional folk medicine.

Henry Trimen, both the genus, and binomial authority of Spenceria, and S. ramalana, respectively, gave an explanation of how he arrived at these names: the genus name was given in honour of Trimen's friend, and fellow botanist, Spencer Moore, who was employed at the Kew Herbarium. Trimen thought about choosing a name commemorating the collector of the species, one Captain Gill, R.E., but decided against it, as there already was a genus Gilia (Polemoniaceae), and he wished to avoid, in his words, "the formation of another of precisely similar sound." As the species was collected from a mountain named Ra-Ma-La, it is likely that the specific epithet "ramalana" was chosen as a toponym (the suffix "-ana" meaning "belonging to", hence "from Ra-Ma-La").