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New orchid discovered in SA
21/12/2006 08:28 - (SA)
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| This is an undated photograph of a Disa linderiana orchid. (AP) |
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Johannesburg - A new species of orchid with beetroot-red leaves and a white flower has been discovered growing on a high mountain peak in South Africa, conservation officials said on Wednesday.
A member of the genus Disa, which is part of the orchid family, the new flower was found near the summit of the 2 026-metre high Sneeuberg, the highest mountain in the Cape's Cederberg range.
The new orchid was first spotted and photographed in 2004 by a field ranger for CapeNature, the conservation authority in the Western Cape province.
But experts were unable to identify the flower and the mystery caused a buzz in local botany circles.
Then in late November a team of botanists found about 40 of the orchids on the mountain.
"It was an arduous climb, straight up," said Tessa Oliver, a botanist from the University of Western Cape.
"But after only seeing bad photographs of the orchid it was thrilling when we spotted the first one. It's so cute."
Oliver said most orchids in South Africa flower in the first year after a fire and there can be gaps of 20 years between sightings.
"But this one is special because it doesn't need fire. It is just growing there," she said.
The tiny white flower with purple specks on its inside is only about one centimetre wide and the entire plant stands between 10 and 30cm tall.
'Next year we will have to go looking again'
It is being named Disa linderiana in honour of Professor Peter Linder, formerly of the University of Cape Town, a renowned orchid expert who is now in Zurich, Switzerland.
Oliver said orchids were the biggest group of flowering plants in the world and that there were 25 000 different types.
She said the most commonly known are the exotic flowers from the tropics but South Africa has a couple of hundred different kinds.
"They are not as big and showy as the ones from the tropics but they're still special," she said.
The Cape falls into a unique floral region known as the fynbos biome after the small fine-leaved flowers found there. The biome has been declared a World Heritage Site and is the smallest and the most threatened in the world with over 9 000 species.
Yet it still delivers new plants for botanists to discover, many of which have been made by Oliver and her family of orchid experts.
"My mother discovered one a couple of years ago and it is named after her. We discovered another one earlier this year but is was dreary and drab. This one is the cherry on the top," she said.
Oliver said the plant would now be studied and the results published in the South African Journal of Botany.
She said some orchids only grow in one particular place and it was unclear why this species had taken root in the high slopes of the mountain.
"Maybe this is the only place it grows or there may be other areas. Next year we will have to go looking again," she said.
- AP
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