Oberonia swaminathanii sp. nov. (Orchidaceae) from Kerala, India

Abstract

Oberonia swaminathanii, a new species of Orchidaceae from Wayanad district, Kerala, India is described and illustrated. The new species resembles Oberonia balakrishnanii, O. chandrasekharanii and O. seidenfadeniana by its 3‐lobed labellum and 2‐lobuled midlobe; but differs in having brick‐red coloured flowers, triangular labellum disc, and a subglobose column.

A new species of Oberonia (Orchidaceae) from Western Ghats of Kerala, India

“…The first author collected some appealing Oberonia material from a Shola forest on the way to Elival hills of the Muthikulam forest, Palakkad District, Kerala. After critical study of the material and a perusal of pertinent literature (Seidenfaden 1968, Ansari et al 1982, Ansari and Balakrishnan 1990, Kumar and Manilal 1994, Narayanan et al 2010 we realized that the collected material is closely similar to Oberonia sebastiana B.V. Shetty & Vivek. but differs in some important attributes and it is hence described here as a new species.…”

“…The genus is essentially distributed from tropical and South Africa across Asia into the Pacific (Govaerts et al 2017). Till date, 68 species have been reported from India (Ansari and Balakrishnan 1990, Misra 2007, Narayanan et al 2010, Chowlu et al 2015, Chowlu and Rab 2017, and 31 of them are endemic to India. In the Western Ghats the genus is represented by about 30 species of which 17 are regional endemics while 13 species are strictly endemic to the Western Ghats (Jalal andJayanthi 2012, Nayar et al 2015).…”

<i>Impatiens theuerkaufiana</i> (Balsaminaceae), a new scapigerous species from the Western Ghats, India

“…The Wayanad district of Kerala is a biodiversity rich area in the Nilgiri Phytogeographical region of the Western Ghats which harbours several endemic species (Sivadasan & Balakrishnan 1989, Sivadasan & Jaleel 2002, Narayanan et al 2010a, 2010b, 2012. During the floristic study of Wayanad district, 21 species of Impatiens were collected from various habitats (Narayanan 2010).…”

<p class="HeadingRunIn"><strong><em>Miliusa gokhalaei, </em>a new species of Annonaceae from India with notes on interrelationships, population structure and conservation status</strong></p>

“…Forests of Wayanad district are rich in diverse flora with several endemics (Sivadasan & Balakrishnan 1989;Sivadasan & Jaleel 2002;Narayanan et al 2010a;Narayanan et al 2010b;Narayanan et al 2011); these are highly fragmented due to large-scale plantations of coffee, tea, cardamom etc., and they form a buffer zone for the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. Among the ten species of Miliusa of peninsular India, five including the recently published species, viz.…”