Gastrochilus kadooriei (Orchidaceae), a new species from Hong Kong, with notes on allied taxa in section Microphyllae found in the region.

Abstract

A new species, Gastrochilus kadooriei, is described from Hong Kong. Notes are presented on its distribution, ecology and conservation status, and its distinguishing features are compared with those of allied taxa. Gastrochilus jeitouensis is reduced to the synonymy of G. distichus, and a lectotype is assigned for G. pseudodistichus. Gastrochilus fuscopunctatus is reinstated as an accepted species. Dichotomous keys to this taxonomically difficult group of morphologically similar species are presented.

Gastrochilus heminii (Orchidaceae, Epidendroideae), a new species from Sichuan, China, based on molecular and morphological data

“… Gastrochilus D.Don ( Orchidaceae , Epidendroideae ; Don 1825 ) is diagnosed by a subdivided labellum with a recurved epichile and a saccate hypochile attached to the column at the base and two subglobose pollinia attached to a slender and filiform stipe ( Tsi 1999 ; Pridgeon et al 2014 ). The genus comprises more than 70 accepted species, most of which are distributed in Southeast Asia ( Kumar et al 2014 ; Liu et al 2016 , 2019 ; Liu and Gao 2018 ; Rao et al 2019 ; Govaerts et al 2021 ; Nguyen et al 2021 ; Zhou et al 2021a , b ; Zhang et al 2022 ). Liu et al (2019) first constructed the phylogenetic relationships of Gastrochilus and divided them into five clades.…”

Anoectochilus formosanus (Orchidaceae), a new record for Hong Kong

“…Hong Kong, lying at the easternmost margin of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot (IBBH), harbors 133 documented species of orchids (Gale et al, 2014), which constitutes nearly 6% of the Hong Kong flora and nearly 8% of all orchids known in the flora of China (Zhou et al, 2016), within an area of just 1,108 km 2 . This tally has risen steadily since botanical exploration of the territory commenced in 1816, with Reichenbach (1855) enumerating 23 species, Dunn andTutcher (1912) 66, Herklots (1937) 75, Hu (1977) 109, Siu (2000) 125, Barretto et al (2011) 126, andKumar et al (2014) 130 -a rate of c. 7 species added every 10 years. Here we report on another newly recorded orchid for Hong Kong, bringing the total to 134.…”

Notes on the genus Gastrochilus (Orchidaceae) in Myanmar

“…This genus includes around 62 species distributed from Andamans, Sri Lanka, India and the Himalayas eastwards to southern China, Indochina and southern Japan and southwards to the Philippines and Indonesia, of which many species are narrow endemics and there is a major centre of diversity in the South-East Asian archipelago (Chen et al 2009;Kumar et al 2014;Govaerts et al 2016;Liu et al 2016Liu et al , 2019Raskoti 2016;Averyanov et al 2018;Liu and Gao 2018). According to the latest references, there are 9 species of Gastrochilus distributed in Myanmar (Kress et al 2003;Kurzweil and Lwin 2014), but these are only known from very few, sometimes single, specimens or over-simplified descriptions.…”