An urgent need exists for easily accessible information on Orchidaceae. Orchid information is traditionally stored in books. An electronic information retrieval system has been designed by ETI (Expert Centre for Taxonomic Identification) which can present an interactive multi-entry identification system and descriptions and other information on taxa, and a few thousand colour photographs and drawings which can be retrieved and even printed. The Nationaal Herbarium Nederland is producing Orchid publications in this system on CD-ROM’s, in close co-operation with Papua New Guinean, English, Danish, Philippine, and Vietnamese Herbaria and Botanic Gardens. Present activities involve producing a series of 6 CD-ROMs on the Orchid genera and Species of New Guinea (2 published), as well as on the orchid genera of the Philippines (1 published) and Vietnam.
The CD-ROM’s will contain for each taxon a combination of the following data: the name and synonyms, literature references, a description, its distribution, drawings, photographs, type(s), notes on cultivation, etc., with identification keys and a hyperlinked glossary. New insights will be included, but the main strength of this project is bringing together the vast quantity of existing data on Southeast Asian Orchidaceae buried in literature and books.
The versatility and power of this identification system, combined with the simplicity in use, will be demonstrated by overhead projection with the three already published CD-ROM’s of the New Guinea series:
Flora Malesiana. Orchids Flora Malesiana. Orchids of New Guinea Vol. III: Genera Acanthephippium to Hymenorchis (excluding Bulbophyllinae and Dendrobiinae).
. . . read more
BIBLIORCHIDEA the Orchid Literature Database
Rudolf Jenny
Literature is still playing a major role in science and research, on one side because it is a documentation of research already done and a demonstration of the results. On the other hand it is also a record about recent research. At least for the time being, literature search is a part of any scientific work or project. Whoever has done literature search knows about the difficulties to reach an overview of the literature in connection with a project in an acceptable time and with acceptable effort. Computer technology today provides us with a large selection of very helpful tools to limit time and effort for literature search.
BIBLIORCHIDEA was build up over a period of about 15 years as a database about orchid literature in all its aspects, providing a fast and actual access to books and articles about or in connection with Orchidaceae. Special emphasis was given to taxonomy and systematics. Today BIBLIORCHIDEA consists of more than 125'000 documents. Because of copyright regulations BIBLIORCHIDEA is a collection of citations only, together with a extensive list of keywords based on the “hard-copy” of the publication in one of the most complete orchid literature collections worldwide.
The actual form of BIBLIORCHIDEA as it is accessible through internet (www.Bibliorchidea.net), will allow the user different kinds of search or also the connection of different search methods. These are:
- direct search for author and co-author
- direct search for the year of publication (selection direct or in a bos or window)
- search with text-input in the fields Title, Literature quotation, Editor, Publisher, “Above species” and “Species and below” (free-text search)
- direct search for new descriptions in the respective fields “Above species” and “Species and below”
- search for keywords by direct selection from the keyword catalogue as single keyword or in connection with other keywords by using the connecting terms and / or (Boolean connections)
- enlarge the result by using one of the above mentioned methods.
- restrict (decrease) the result by using one of the above mentioned methods (“decrease to” and “decrease by” – functions)
Besides the search mechanisms, the software naturally allows the sorting of results by different criterions and the printout as list of documents or as single document with all the detailed information. The important addition is the fact that all documents the user can find in BIBLIORCHIDEA are also available as physical copy, hence a very fast access is guaranteed.
Picture documentation in electronic form
Frank Slaughter Jr
To document its awards granting endeavors, the American Orchid Society (A.O.S.) has accumulated more than 45,000 color slides. Recognizing the perishable nature and educational value of its award slides holding, subject to the availability of volunteer and financial resources, the A.O.S. is attempting to scan its entire, growing award slides collection. This talk will review how scans at 4000 pixel per inch resolution are being made and how their color accuracy is being safeguarded. Special attention will be given to how the use of ICC profiles for digital scanners, computer monitors, printers, and digital projectors contributes to achieving accurate color both in the acquisition and use of orchid slide scans. The talk also will demonstrate custom software that has been developed to automate deriving lower resolution images from high resolution scans. Ready availability of color accurate, lower resolution images supports A.O.S. publications, strengthens visual offerings on A.O.S. web sites, and can better inform orchid judging decisions by providing rapid access to comparative pictorial information.
Frank Slaughter, Jr. is a retired academic mathematician, former A.O.S. Trustee, and accredited orchid judge. He chairs the A.O.S Technology Task Force, the research and software development body in charge of the digital award slides scanning project.
The Evolution of the Orchid Hobbyist Through the Centuries
Norito Hasegawa.
Undoubtedly orchids have been admired for centuries. It is inconceivable that native people of many countries have not admired orchids as they grew and flowered in their habitat. However, whether they were collected and successfully grown as pet plants over the millennia has not necessarily been recorded.
The first accounts of orchids being truly collected and grown artificially can be traced to the Chinese who called them lan. But it is possible lan could have initially included many different flowers such as lilies, as well as orchids.
The Chinese and Japanese artists included cymbidiums in drawings. The Japanese samurai admired and collected them for their sweet fragrances, plant growths, and leaf variations. Neofinetias were collected and nurtured as well. Since the simple start and art of collecting and cultivating orchids in China and Japan, the Western world caught up quickly, spreading the gospel of orchids. Commercial ventures especially in England grew around the importations and new discoveries of orchids. The expense of collecting and importing with subsequent huge losses made it prohibitive for the ordinary hobbyists to purchase them in great quantities. Mostly the affluent became avid collectors and their activities undoubtedly included things such as one-upmanship, prestige, snobbery and pride of possession in a one-of-a-kind orchid plant or hybrid. Many books were written touting different formulas for growing orchids including greenhouse culture and outdoor culture, thus spreading the word on how “easy” it was to grow many orchids. The growth of many orchid societies undoubtedly has had influence in popularizing the hobby. Today orchids are so readily available in grocery stores, general gardening stores, and through the Internet, that the hobby of orchid collecting runs the gamut of those who are serious orchid breeders, to artists, to orchid scientists, to multiple and monogeneric collectors, and of course to those wishing to have potfuls of beautiful, inexpensive, unlabeled orchids. Getting to this last phase of the hobby, of course, took centuries to accomplish which includes the evolution and improvements of artificial germination, the improvements of growing media, the concept of meristeming, and the use of computerization in growing, marketing, and orchid distribution.
African stars: the angrecoid orchids of Africa and Madagascar
Joyce Stewart (*)
At least 55 genera are currently recognized in the epiphytes, at least 48 of those genera, comprising a total of 660 species, occur in Africa and Madagascar. But there are at least 18 monotypic genera and 23 genera with less than 10 species each. Only a few genera have 40 or more species, and Angraecum has more than 220 species. Size alone is not a criterion for generic delimitation, but surely this genus, with its very diverse plant habits, inflorescences and flowers, is overdue for revision? Several others also demonstrate remarkable differences between species. In this paper attention will be drawn to those taxa, large and small, where DNA analysis might yield information.
(*) - Author of books on orchids. President of The World Orchid Conference Trust
Newly seen Bulbophyllum and their cultivation
Roland Schettler
During the last years several Bulbophyllum species came to the collections of orchid growers and amateurs. Some of them are old friends but some are really new, they have fantasy names just to identify them. The difficulty for scientists is, without any origin their is no chance to describe them. The plants came from collectors and breeders in Vietnam and the countries around. Some of them are very exciting, they produce lovely colours and unusual flowerforms. For the reason that Bulbophyllum has somewhat as a renaissance some showy hybrids will also be shown. Examples for these new members of genus Bulbophyllum are Bulbophyllum lepidum, Bulbophyllum pectenveneris, Bulbophyllum retusiusculum and Bulbophyllum frostii.
Some outstanding cultivated examples will be shown and directions for cultivation and reproduction will be given.
Roland Schettler, after the study of theology, philosophy and biology work as scientist at the field of biotechnology in the Institut of Pantbreeding, Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft in Braunschweig, Germany. After that leading scientist of the firm Piccoplant in Oldenburg Germany. Today working as highschoolteacher in Halver, Germany. He is one of the founders of Vereinigung Deutscher Orchideenfreunde and their president since 1995, since 1994 the Editor of Journal für den Orchideenfreund, author of several articles and Editor of two books in the field of orchids. He is a speaker and judge at WOCs and EOCs and advertiser of judging the forthcoming WOC in Dijon, France.
Comparative analysis between Orchis species and their hybrid
Schatz Bertrand
Hybridization is commonly regarded as one of the leading mechanisms in plant evolution. Its widespread occurrence within Orchidaceae suggests that it may play a significant role in orchid speciation and in their evolution. Ecological observations and studies of odours emitted by plants can yield information on the causes and consequences of hybridization. We studied the parental species Orchis simia and O. anthropophora and their hybrid O. bergonii in the region of “Grands Causses” north of Montpellier, France. We compared floral morphology, the suite of flower visitors and (using head-space technique) the volatile compounds emitted by flowers of the three taxa. Hybrids were intermediate in floral morphology between their two parents. We distinguished among confirmed pollinators, potential pollinators and non-pollinating among insects observed on the inflorescences. One species of beetle was a confirmed pollinator of the two parental species. Interestingly, the habitat in which the hybrid occurs is also that in which this beetle occurs. The volatile compounds emitted by O. bergonii were quantitatively very different from those emitted by O. simia and O. anthropophora. This difference can explain why only few insects were observed on the inflorescences of hybrids, whereas insects were more numerous on inflorescences of the two parental species. This case then constitutes a promising model for understanding the ecology of pollination in hybrid orchids.
Bertrand Schatz is a young researcher in the French CNRS, where he investigates several insects-orchids interactions in the Mediterranean region. He is in charge of the scientific commission “Insects-orchids interactions” of SFO (French Society of Orchidophily).
The New Genera Discovered in Ecuador
Alexander Hirtz
There has been a recent explosion in evolution in certain genera of orchids in Ecuador, with 2,200 new species discovered in the past few decades. Only 12% of the total of the 220 Ecuadorian genera account for 90% of the new discovered species. Also several new genera have been discovered recently, like the genera Benzingua, Teaguea, Suarezia or Epibator. We will discuss with some highlights and description if their habitat.
Why are new orchids still being discovered?
Dr. Phillip Cribb (*)
New species continue to be added at a more or less steady rate if 200-300 per annum and the discovery of new species shows no sign of declining. How long can flow of new species continue? The last of the world`s wild places are being opened up. The montane forests are threaten, fields are being cleared on the steepest slopes. Many orchids are being destroyed before scientists can describe them. I anticipate that the flow of new species will continue unabated for a decade or two but time is running out. The idea that new species of orchids evolve rapidly has been mooted by some orchid specialists to explain the numbers of novelties found in the Andes. Those ideas are discussed.
(*) Curator if the Orchid Herbarium Kew. Chairman of IUCN Species Survival Commission`s Orchid Specialist Group.
CITES, its Evolution, and the History of Attitudes towards it
Harold Koopowitz (*)
I will examine the rationale and reasoning behind listing various orchid genera and species on CITES Appendix I and the entire orchid family on CITES Appendix II. It appears that CITES works against ex situ species conservation by erecting insurmountable bureaucratic barriers. Arguments that current restrictions on orchid exports are not the fault of CITES will be examined. CITES enforcement varies by country and signatory. Methods for changing CITES listing will be suggested. It would also serve conservation, the orchid growing community and CITES better if all three could cooperate and facilitate making orchids species available commercially by mass artificial propagation.
(*) - Professor (University of Irvine, California). Author of numerous books on Botany
Cypripedium in China
Dr. Holger Perner (*)
Within the slipperorchids the genus Cypripedium comprising 48 species forms the second largest group behind Paphiopedilum . For more than 150 years tropical Paphiopedilum and Phragmipedium are in the focus of scientists and horticulturists. Since about 10 years the interest is increasing in the temperate genus Cypripedium. China hosts 71% of all known species. The world-wide highest concentration of temperate slipper orchids is found in the mountains of Southwest China where 25 species occur, 20 if them endemic to the region. All sections known from China will be discussed, as well as the ecology, conservation and cultivation of the Chinese Cypripedium.
(*) - Huanglong Nature Reserve Sichuan, China
French Orchids
Dr. Jean Koenig (*)
Some 150 species of wild orchids are to be found in France. They looked less numerous some 50 years ago but researches leading to a better knowledge of taxa allowed to distinguish several new species. Eighteen species are very rare and protected at national level. French orchids mapping has been set up since more than 20 years. The identified variations in quantitative distribution data help to justify protective actions, in progress or expected. Populations evolution during this period presents variations which may be caused by climatic changes and direct human action.
(*) - Engineer (National Institute for Agricultural Research). Vice Chairman of the French Orchid Society.
ORCHID NEWS, a virtual magazine
Delfina de Araujo and Sergio Araujo
The creation of the site BRAZILIAN ORCHID dated from l996 and in a short time, the site became a reference in orchidology and orchidophilia in Brazil and abroad.
In spite of the new topics, periodically added and frequent a actualization the others, the editors felt the necessity of stimulating the return constant to the site and making it more dynamic as well as to divulgate the works done in this area.
The answer to those needs was the edition of the first virtual magazine of orchidophilia and orchidology ORCHID NEWS, edited exclusively by Sergio Araujo and Delfina Araujo.
Since then more than 24 editions have been put on the Internet accomplishing the function of helping to make known the works on orchids (done in Brazil or abroad however mainly about Brazilian species), to redeem the national orchidophil memory and to stimulate the cultivation.
The editors are not only concerned about the specialist visitant (researcher) but also the amateur orchidists. So aiming to be an attractive magazine for both, the topics are diversified. There are scientific works, non -scientific approachs, scientific drawing and artistic photography, raising healthy discussions and taking advantage of the Internet as a modern way of communication in the divulgation of scientific and horticultural knowledge.
