Tag: Orchids

Rare new orchid species just discovered in the Andes

Three new endemic orchid species were discovered in Ecuador and described in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PhytoKeys. Lepanthes microprosartima, L. caranqui and L. oro-lojaensis are proof that Ecuador – one of the world’s megadiverse countries – hides much more biodiversity waiting to be explored.

For its size, Ecuador has an impressive biological diversity that harbours a unique set of species and ecosystems, many of them endemic or threatened. Because of this great biodiversity, most studies still focus on recording species richness and very little is known about how these species actually interact. This is why in 2017 Dr Catherine H. Graham from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, with support from the European Research Council and local NGO Aves y Conservation, initiated an ambitious project in the northwestern Andes of Ecuador to study the ecology of plant-hummingbird interactions along an altitudinal and land-use gradient.

*Lepanthes oro-lojaensis*. Photo by Diego Francisco Tobar Suàrez

To this end, researchers established 18 transects in areas of well-preserved cloud forest and sites at different altitude and with different levels of disturbance, and visited them monthly to count the flowers that attract hummingbirds and to place time-lapse cameras in flowering plants.

Lepanthes microprosartima. Photo by Diego Francisco Tobar Suàrez

Several new species to science were discovered during the intensive botanical work of identifying the nearly 400 plant species recorded by the surveys and cameras. One of them is a new orchid species called Lepanthes microprosartima.

Found on the western slopes of Pichincha volcano in northern Ecuador, L. microprosartima is endemic to the Yanacocha and Verdecocha reserves, where it grows at 3200 to 3800 m above sea level in evergreen montane forest – remarkably, this species can thrive even under deep shade in the forest.

Over three years of monitoring, only 40 individuals of L. microprosartima were found, which suggests it is a rare species. Because of this, and because it is only found in a small area, researchers preliminarily assessed it as Critically Endangered according to IUCN criteria.

*Lepanthes caranqui*. Photo by Diego Francisco Tobar Suàrez

Within the same hummingbird monitoring project, another new orchid – Lepanthes caranqui – was discovered in eastern Pichincha. Around the same time, a different research group from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador found the same species in Imbabura. While in Imbabura it was found growing in páramo, with small groups on roadside embankments, in Pichincha it grew in evergreen montane forest, on top of tree trunks or lower branches, in the company of other orchid species. Its name, Lepanthes caranqui, honors the Caranqui culture that historically occupied the areas where this plant grows.

But the wonders of Ecuadorean biodiversity don’t stop there – a research project of Ecuador’s National Institute of Biodiversity found another new species, as small as 3 cm, in the southwest of El Oro. Lepanthes oro-lojaensis was actually discovered on the border between El Oro and Loja provinces, hence its name. It was only found from one locality, where its populations are threatened by cattle ranching, fires, plantations of exotic species, and the collection of shrubs as firewood. This is why researchers believe it should be listed as Critically Endangered according to IUCN criteria.

These additions to the Ecuadorean flora are all described in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PhytoKeys. They are proof that Ecuador – one of the world’s megadiverse countries – hides much more biodiversity waiting to be explored.

Original source:

Suarez FT, López MF, Gavilanes MJ, Monteros MF, García TS, Graham CH (2021) Three new endemic species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae, Pleurothallidinae) from the highlands of Ecuador. PhytoKeys 180: 111-132. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.180.62671

Where Siberian orchids thrive: new hotspot of orchids discovered near Novosibirsk

Orchids of the Boreal zone are rare species. Most of the 28,000 species of the Orchid family actually live in the tropics. In the Boreal zone, ground orchids can hardly tolerate competition from other plants — mainly forbs or grasses. So they are often pushed into ecotones — border areas between meadows and forests, or between forests and swamps.

*The variety of bloated lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium x ventricosum) within the boundaries of the Important Plant Area ‘Orchid Zapovednik’. Photo: Alexander Dubynin*

Furthermore, there has been a decline in wild orchids all over North America and Eurasia, caused in part by human-induced destruction of their habitats, the transformation of ecosystems, and the harvesting of flowers from the wild.

In the Novosibirsk region, 30 orchid species have been found, and about 40 in the entire Siberia.

*Lesser yellow lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium calceolus) grows next to large-flowered lady’s-slipper and steadily forms a hybrid — bloated lady’s-slipper. Photo: Alexander Dubynin*

It is no coincidence that many orchids are included in regional and national Red Book lists, with dedicated protected areas created to preserve them. When specialists find high concentrations of orchid species in a small area, it is always a significant discovery, in terms of both science and ecology. A recent publication in the open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal Acta Biologica Sibirica describes one such area.

About 15 years ago, local biology teacher Yuri Panov found a place with mass growth of 13 orchid species in the Novosibirsk region. Together with his students, he studied the territory and took care of it, hanging birdhouses. The place was informally called School Orchid Zapovednik.

*For the first time, this unique territory was discovered by a local biology teacher Yuri Panov, the head of the school environmental museum. Photo: Alexander Dubynin*

In 2014, a wildfire from nearby farm fields broke out in the area. Fortunately, the orchid populations did not suffer much – in fact, this disturbance partially contributed to their growth in some areas, reducing competition from grasses and shrubs. However, the danger of frequent fires prompted Panov to invite specialists for a thorough botanical survey of the territory.

Researchers Alexander Dubynin, Inessa Selyutina and Alexandra Egorova of the Central Siberian Botanical Garden in Novosibirsk, and Mikhail Blinnikov of Kazan Federal University have been working in the area since 2017, registering the occurrences of orchids and photographing plants for the iNaturalist platform. There and in adjacent territories, they discovered a total of 14 orchid species, some of which were new to this territory and had never been registered before.

Variety of bloated lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium x ventricosum)

The area in Novosibirsk region is truly unique. Here, researchers found one of the largest populations of large-flowered lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium macranthos) in Northern Eurasia, with up to 5,000 individual plants. The Cypripedium calceolus Lady’s-slipper orchid and the rare and beautiful bloated lady’s slipper (Cypripedium ventricosum) were also plentiful. Some of the discovered orchids require further study, such as the hybrids between Dactylorhiza and Gymnadenia and some unusual forms of Platanthera.

The researched area contained a wide variety of orchids. Video by Artem Shershnev

After an expert description of the territory, a new Important Plant Area was nominated for South Siberia. “Based on the analysis of plant species composition of protected areas in Novosibirsk Region,” Alexander Dubynin resumes, “we conclude that in situ preservation of orchids in the region is overall insufficient. It is therefore necessary to organize a new protected area ‘Orchid Zapovednik’ in the category of ‘botanical Zakaznik’ on 335 hectares with an explicit floral diversity conservation mandate and long-term orchid population monitoring.”

Over the past three years, the territory has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers and educators, becoming a kind of a ‘field laboratory’ for the study of orchid communities in South Siberia.

Original source:

Dubynin A, Selyutina I, Egorova A, Blinnikov M (2021) An orchid (Orchidaceae)-rich area recommended for preservation in Novosibirsk Region, Russia. Acta Biologica Sibirica 7: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3897/abs.7.e63131

Four new orchid species discovered during Lengguru 2014 expedition, West Papua, Indonesia

One of the biggest scientific expeditions ever undertaken in Indonesia, Lengguru 2014, made it possible to study and collect dozens of unknown plant and animal species, including four new orchids. Curiously, the research team, led by Dr. Lina Juswara, Cibinong Science Centre, Indonesia, collected three of these novelties over the span of a single day at the top of a small and unexplored mountain at 1000-metre elevation. The findings, which confirm previous suggestions that many species still await discovery there, are described and published in the open-access journal Phytokeys.

Thanks to the 2014 Lengguru scientific expedition some of the mysteries of Lengguru, an almost impenetrable mountainous area in an isolated and difficult-to-reach part of the Indonesian half of the New Guinea island, have been revealed. About a hundred participants, including 25 European and 45 Indonesian scientists, took part in it with the shared goal to collect essential data on the biodiversity of West Papua.

Lengguru remains one of the last unexplored territories on the planet. Covering an area, comparable in size to Sardinia, it consists of limestone formations, known as ‘karst’, forming a mosaic of natural ecosystems. The Lengguru 2014 expedition attempted to investigate Lengguru’s biodiversity in order to generate scientific data for molecular, ecological, taxonomical and biogeographical studies.

During the 6-week expedition, 72 fertile/flowering orchid specimens have been collected from the field by the internal team of Indonesian, French and Belgian botanists. So far, four new species have been identified among them.

“After the expedition, we examined and compared the Lengguru orchids with reference material housed in scientific collections,” explains Dr. Lina Juswara. Together with Dr. Vincent Droissart from the Research Institute for Development, France, they were the experts in charge to gather data on the large and glamorous Orchid family during the expedition. The identifications, descriptions and drawings of the new species were realized in close collaboration with Dr. Andre Schuiteman, Royal Botanical Garden Kew, United Kingdom, an internationally recognized expert on the orchid flora of Asia.

New Guinea is known to harbor one of the richest orchid floras in the world, surpassed only by Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. All four new orchid species discovered in Lengguru have been collected in high altitude forest, at over 1000 meters above sea level. These particular habitats, usually shrouded in clouds, are home to an exceptional plant diversity with a high degree of endemism, meaning the species cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The specific environmental conditions and the very small surface occupied by these ‘isolated islands’ of mountain forests make them particularly vulnerable to global climate change.

“Large parts of New Guinea have been overlooked in terms of collection initiatives and it is likely that many species still await discovery there”, says Dr. Lina Juswara. “More field studies are also required to find additional populations of the new species we found in Lengguru, in order to better characterize their habitat, ecology and conservation status. Of the four new orchid species collected during the expedition, three were collected on a single day, confirming that the flora of Lengguru is still far from completely described.”

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Original source:

Juswara L, Schuiteman A, Droissart V (2016) Four new orchid species from the Lengguru fold belt, West Papua, Indonesia. PhytoKeys 61: 47-59. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.61.7590

Additional Information:

Fieldwork, laboratory activities and herbarium visits were supported by the Project Lengguru 2014 (http://www.lengguru.org), conducted by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the University of Papua (UNIPA), the University of Cendrawasih (UNCEN), the University of Musamus (UNMUS) and the Sorong Fisheries Academy (APSOR) with corporate sponsorship from COLAS Group, Veolia Water and the Total Foundation.

Known from flower stalls as ‘Big Pink’ orchid proved to be an undescribed wild species

As easy as it might seem, seeking new species among cultivated plants could be actually quite tricky. While looking into the undescribed orchid, known at the market as ‘Big Pink’, Bobby Sulistyo and his team were likely to find yet another man-made hybrid. In reality, they are now describing as ‘new’ a wild orchid species that has been sitting at the flower stalls since 2013. The story behind their discovery is published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

While studying a cultivated plant might be quite a motivator and serve as a starting point for scientific quests around the world, the assumptions that one has found a new species at the florist’s could easily be wrong. Not only is the place of origin, written on the label, often doubtful, but there is always the chance of accidentally describing a man-made hybrid as a new species.

Such could have been the case of Bobby Sulistyo and his team when they discovered that although previously assumed impossible, the relatives of ‘Big Pink’, they were surveying, could also make human-assisted hybrids. Moreover, both of the specimens they have had at hand had come from uncertain place of origin.

However, the scientists conducted a series of sophisticated DNA analyses to conclude that firstly, ‘Big Pink’ is a separate species within its genus and then, that there is no evidence for it being an artificial hybrid. Eventually, the species was found in the wild as well. As a result, the orchid species was given the official name Dendrochilum hampelii.

In the wild, ‘Big Pink’ is found at around 1,200 m above sea level in the Philippines, where it harmlessly plants its roots on tree trunks and branches among mosses.

So far, little is known about the orchid’s distribution in nature, so the researchers suggest its conservation status to be considered as Data Deficient according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2012).

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Original source:

Sulistyo B, Boos R, Cootes J, Gravendeel B (2015) Dendrochilum hampelii (Coelogyninae, Epidendroideae, Orchidaceae) traded as ‘Big Pink’ is a new species, not a hybrid: evidence from nrITS, matK and ycf1 sequence data. PhytoKeys 56: 83-97. doi:10.3897/phytokeys.56.5432