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• Introduction
• John
Day and his scrapbooks
• Conserving
orchids
• Investigating orchids
• Orchid
collecting - then and now
• Orchids
from the New World tropics
• Orchids
of the mysterious East
• Orchids
out of Africa
Paphiopedilum parishii
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The earliest catalogue of plants growing in the Royal Gardens at
Kew, published in 1768, lists 24 different orchid species. Today
there are over 5000 species in the living plant collection. These
are an immensely important research resource for Kew’s orchid
specialists, complementing the 330,000 preserved orchid specimens
held in the Herbarium and the comprehensive collection of books
and illustrations, including the John Day scrapbooks.
In recent years, Kew’s orchid botanists have been active in
studies of orchids from the Old World tropics, notably Malaysia,
Indonesia, China, Africa and Madagascar. By combining research in
the field with detailed investigation of specimens in the Kew collections
and in other herbaria worldwide, they prepare inventories (floras
and checklists) of orchids in particular regions. These are crucial
as catalogues of the orchid diversity, distribution, ecology and
rarity when conservation assessments are undertaken.
The breadth of the plant collections also supports in-depth research
into specific groups of orchids, leading to greater understanding
of the relationships, both within genera, such as Cymbidium,
Paphiopedilum and Pleione, and in the family as
a whole. The Genera Orchidacearum project is a worldwide
study of the different genera in the family involving 50 different
scientists from Kew and other botanical institutions. It brings
together information from many different disciplines – morphology,
anatomy, palynology, ecology, pollination, phytochemistry and DNA
sequences – to produce a new classification of the family
based on their phylogenetic relationships.
More:
Orchid collecting - then and now >>>
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