New, rare and unusual orchid species from South East Asia
2005
O`Byrne, P.
Across South East Asia the forests are being felled, both by large-scale commercial operations and on a small scale by local villagers. While it is generally accepted that the environmental implications of this deforestation will be severe, if not disastrous, it has also resulted in providing easier access to parts of the forest that were previously inaccessible or extremely hard to reach. The orchid flora of these previously inaccessible regions contains a surprisingly large number of species that are new to science or are new distribution records. These regions also contain populations of species that have been long-lost to science and horticulture or are very rare elsewhere. Examples of recently discovered South East Asia taxa include the genus Notheria, represented by the single species N. diaphana, Bulbophyllum adelphidium, Calanthe nicolae and C.maxii, Coelogyne fonstenebrarum, Dendrobium judithiae, D.tobaense, D. torajaense and D. vogelsangii, Erythrodes latifolia var. johorense, Pennilabium naja, and Thrixspermum torajaense. New distribution records include Thrixspermum annamense (in Malaysia), Cordiglottis filiformis, Cymbidium rectum and Oberonia lunata (in Sumatra). The principal beneficiaries of the improved access to remote forest areas are commercial orchid collectors, who have taken the opportunity to supplement their stocks with previously unavailable rare or unusual species, including: the alba-form of B. burfordiense, Dendrochilum megalanthum, Phalaenopsis pantherina and P. speciosa (as P. tetraspis) the recently discovered species Ascocentrum christensonianum and Bulbophyllum sulawesiiand the recently rediscovered species Bulbophyllum echinolabium, Dendrobium corrugatilobum, and Vanda lindeni. A number of new species have recently been described from wide-collected plants seen in nurseries, including Calanthe lyroglossa var. longibracteata, Coelogyne tommii, and several described in the USA and Europe.
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