{"id":3869,"date":"2019-07-18T10:05:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T10:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=3869"},"modified":"2019-07-18T10:05:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T10:05:48","slug":"india-hosts-1256-species-of-orchid-reported-by-botanical-survey-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/india-hosts-1256-species-of-orchid-reported-by-botanical-survey-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"India hosts 1256 species of orchid reported by Botanical Survey of India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>India hosts 1256 species of orchid reported by <strong>Botanical Survey of India (BSI), which<\/strong> the first comprehensive census of orchids of India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/current-affairs-quiz-2019-daily-gk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Orchids\nof India :<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&nbsp;A Pictorial Guide<\/em>, a publication\ndetailing all the species of India was unveiled earlier this month by the\nMinistry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1,256 species or taxa of orchids belong to 155 genera\nand 388 species are endemic to India. The publication, authored by Paramjit\nSingh, former director of BSI, A.A. Mao the present director of the institute,\nscientists S.S. Dash, S.K. Singh, D.K. Agarwala and J.S. Jalal, also contains\nphotographs of 775 species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Three life forms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orchids can be broadly categorised into three life forms:\nepiphytic (plants growing on another plants including those growing on rock\nboulders and often termed lithophyte), terrestrial (plants growing on land and\nclimbers) and mycoheterotrophic (plants which derive nutrients from mycorrhizal\nfungi that are attached to the roots of a vascular plant). About 60% of all\norchids found in the country, which is 757 species, are epiphytic, 447 are\nterrestrial and 43 are mycoheterotrophic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\n\n\n\nThe epiphytic orchids are abundant up to 1800 m above the sea level and their\noccurrence decreases with the increase in altitude. Terrestrial orchids, which\ngrow directly on soil, are found in large numbers in temperate and alpine\nregion whereas mycoheterotrophic orchids, mostly associated with\nectomycorrhizal fungi, are found in temperate regions, or are found growing\nwith parasites in tropical regions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A State-wise distribution of orchid species point out that\nthe Himalayas, North-East parts of the country and Western Ghats are the\nhot-spots of the beautiful plant species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>State-wise\ndistribution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The highest number of orchid species is recorded from\nArunachal Pradesh with 612 species, followed by Sikkim 560 species and West\nBengal; Darjeeling Himalayas have also high species concentration, with 479\nspecies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While north-east India rank at the top in species\nconcentration, the Western Ghats have high endemism of orchids. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are 388 species of orchids, which are endemic to India\nof which about one-third (128) endemic species are found in Western Ghats. The\npublication points out that Kerala has 111 of these endemic species while Tamil\nNadu has 92 of them. Among the 10 bio geographic zones of India, the Himalayan\nzone is the richest in terms of orchid species followed by Northeast, Western\nGhats, Deccan plateau and Andaman &amp; Nicobar Islands. \u201cThe publication is\nthe result of years of hard and methodical research through careful examination\nof protologues, literature and voucher herbarium specimens. Every record has\nbeen verified from published floras, revisionary works, doctoral thesis and\nscientific papers,\u201d Mr. Mao said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Considering the importance of orchids in floriculture, the\npublication, which has photographs of 60% of all species, is the first\nauthentic inventory and will be useful for researchers, growers, nature lovers\nand people with different backgrounds, Mr. Mao said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marked by extremely beautiful flowers with unique shape and\nornamentation, orchids have complex floral structure that facilitates biotic\ncross-pollination and makes them evolutionarily superior to the other plant\ngroups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another interesting factor is that the entire orchid family\nis listed under appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in\nEndangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and hence any trade of wild orchid\nis banned globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSome of the orchids like Dendrobium , Phalaenopsis,\nOncidium and Cymbidium are quite popular in floriculture trade and have a\ndemand both within and outside country,\u201d Mr. Dash, an author said.<strong>About\nOrchids:<\/strong><br>\nAmong 1,256 orchid species that are found in India,<strong> 388 species<\/strong> of orchids are <strong>endemic to India<\/strong>. Among the 388\nspecies of orchids about 128 endemic species are found in Western Ghats.<br>\nOrchids can be broadly categorised into 3 life forms<br><strong>Types of Orchids:<\/strong><br>\nThree types of Orchids are:<br><strong>Epiphytic type of orchids <\/strong>grow\non another plants including those growing on rock boulders and often termed\nlithophyte. About 757 species are epiphytic.<br><strong>Terrestrial type of orchids<\/strong>\ngrow on land and climbers. 447 species in India are terrestrial.&nbsp;<br><strong>Mycoheterotrophic type of Orchid <\/strong>derive\nnutrients from mycorrhizal fungi. 43 species in India are mycoheterotrophic.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India hosts 1256 species of orchid reported by Botanical Survey of India (BSI), which the first comprehensive census of orchids of India. Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2019 Orchids of India : &nbsp;A Pictorial Guide, a publication detailing all the species of India was unveiled earlier this month by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[179,178],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-3869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-botanical-survey-of-india","tag-orchid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3871,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions\/3871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=3869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}