Tuesday 30 September 2014

A new species of parasitic Orchid from Takeshima Island, Japan.

Orchids of the genus Gastrodia are found across temperate and tropical Asia, Oceania and Madagascar. They are mycoheterotrophs; parasitic plants which obtain nutrients and sugars from Mycorrhizal Fungi (Fungi which normally form symbiotic relationships with plants).  They are a diverse group with over fifty species ranging in size from under five to over 100 cm.

In a paper published in the journal Phytotaxa on 5 August 2014, Kenji Suetsugu of the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies at Kyoto University describes a new species of Gastrodia from Takashima Island, off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture on Kyushu Island, Japan.

The new species is named Gastrodia flexistyloides, though no explanation is given for this name. It is a 9-18 cm leafless Orchid, brown in colour with brown flowers with white spots and a tuberous rhizome (i.e. a tuberous root that can persist below ground outside the growing season and regrow into a new plant when conditions are favourable). The flowers do not open, the plant apparently reproducing entirely by self-fertilisation. Flowers are produced in mid-March to early April, seeds are contained within fruit produced from early April to early May. Gastrodia flexistyloides was found living in Bamboo forests.

Flowering plant of Gastrodia flexistyloides. Scale bar is 2 cm. Suetsugu (2014).

See also…

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-freckled-cypripedium-classified-as.html The Freckled Cypripedium classified as Endangered.                                                 The International Union for the Conservation of Nature published its annual update of its Red List of Threatened Species on Thursday 12 June 2014, marking the 50th year of the list's existence, and revising the status of a number of Plant and Animal species from around the...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-new-species-of-thismia-from-northwest.html A new species of Thismia from northwest Yunnan Province, China.                         Thismias (Thismiaceae) are a small group of Parasitic Plants found throughout the tropics, with a few temperate species known from North America, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. They parasitize the...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/new-species-of-orchid-from-bahia-state.html A new species of Orchid from Bahia State, Brazil.  Orchids of the genus Encyclia are widespread in the American tropics, living as epiphytes (plants that live on other plants, typically on the branches of rainforest trees), terrestrial herbs and on exposed rocks. They are found from Florida to northern Argentina, and live in a wide variety of habitats... 

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