Naresh Swami | The Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya | Memoirs of an orchid hunter – Page 17 – Naresh Swami, The Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya, Memoirs of an orchid hunter, sikkim orchids, darjeeling orchids

Pinalia amica (Rchb.f) Kuntze.

Epiphyte. Pseudo-stem 3 or 4 arise from one point, clavate shaped, ribbed from base to apex, with several large sheaths. Leaves from the apex, 3 to 5 in number, oblong-lanceolate, tapering to the base, 5 to 8 cm in length and 2 to 3 cm in width. Each stem with 3 to 4 raceme, arising from the axils of each sheath. Flowers many, less than 2 cm across. Sepals and petals brownish yellow with 5 purple veins all through its length. The lateral lobes, disc and lamellae of the lip is purplish red and its apical lobe bright yellow.

The Pursuit

A beautiful species with wide range of habitats in the region. Its peculiar stems are an attraction and can be easily spotted. I had located the species in my earlier days of flower hunt itself. However, I missed it for a couple of seasons and got the opportunity to document it in the year 2012 only. When I visited the plant I marked for documenting, the whole branch of that host tree was full of flowers of this species. Even though the flowers are only 2 cm across, they grow in dense raceme to create a beautiful view. Being a common species, I haven’t put much attention and was casually documenting it with 5 micro flashes. After the shoot, when I was transferring the photographs only I noticed its peculiar lip disc and the well developed lamellae. Then I decided to document those flowers again and to record those details in a better way. With fallen logs and bamboo pieces from the forest floor quickly made an erect structure of about 8 ft high. Tied it to the host tree with local creeper twigs and climbed on to it to create a steady view of the flowers. Selected a few freshly bloomed flowers and with 11 micro flashes and 2 optical fibre cable lightings I produced this wonderful photograph of the species. If anybody ask me to gift the best photograph from my collection, I will surely offer this photograph.

Pinalia bractescens (Lindl) Kuntze.

Epiphyte. Pseudo-bulbs cylindric, closely arranged, minutely curved, slightly tapered to its apex. Bulbs are wrinkled during the flowering time. Leaves 3 to 5 from the apex of the bulb, 4 to 7 cm long and 1.5 to 3 cm in width, elliptic-oblong, tapering to its base. Racemes 2 to 4, arising from the axil of the leaves, peduncles sheathed. Flowers 4 to 5, 2 cm across. Sepals, petals, sheaths and its racemes are of an uniform yellow colour; the lamellae on the lip is orange red. Sepals sub-acute; the dorsal narrowly elliptic, arching over the lip; the lateral spreading, broader than the dorsal. Petals much shorter than the sepals, oblong and blunt. Lip oblong, widening towards its three lobed apex, lateral lobes erect, terminal entire and blunt, the apex deflexed. The disc with three glandular margined lamellae.

The Pursuit

The rarest of the rare from the region The authors King and Pantling admitted its non-existence in the region. They took the reference from a couple of drawings made by Late Dr. Simons from specimens collected from Assam, another far away North East state. In the referral book the altitude of this species was mentioned as between 1000 and 3000 ft. I made a comparative study of tropical places of Assam and that of Sikkim-Himalayas and decided to search for this species from those locations. One note of the authors assisted in the further search of the species. They mentioned about another species Eria confusa, Hook as its nearest allied species. I was knowing the habitats of Eria confusa, Hook from the region and concentrated my search on the same habitats of it for this species. Thousands of trees from several square kilometers were searched for this species everyday. Every other day the journey was extending further east on the tropical zone. I came to know about an orchid lover of that locality who had devoted his life in conserving the local species. He was nice enough to accompany me to many locations and show me different species. But the wanted one was missing. With his advice, I shifted to a location near to a protected forest area of the region at a very low altitude. As the main railway line to the North East states passes through that area, everyday me and my team travelled half the way by train, which was cheaper and faster. Six days went off with no trace of this species. In between I found another 4 species which I haven’t got earlier, which compensated the huge financial logistics spend of this particular species. On the seventh day, a herd of wild elephants created havoc in the area and we were forced to move to another location which was around 2 km away from our actual planned search area for the day. I was very much disappointed while walking to the new location. After an hour of search I found three plants with so much similarities to this species. Cross checked with the referral books, it was almost the same. Made arrangements with a very responsible person of that area to visit the plant once in every five days and report to me over phone. He was kind enough to oblige responsibly. Finally after 23 days he reported sighting of racemes and I again visited the place to find 14 raceme all together. By the presence of the sheaths on each of its peduncles I understood this was the species I was looking for. It took another six days and two more visits to see those in bloom and produced this wonderful photograph. On the final day as we were waiting on the railway platform to catch our train back, the 12423 Dibrugarh-New Delhi down Rajdhani whistled pass there making my eyes wet. When ever I see the Delhi bound Rajdhani I go home sick!!!

Epipogium roseum (D. Don) Lindl.

Terrestrial. A plant with smooth and hairless unbranched stem between 8 to 45 cm in height. With many 1 cm long scattered small obtuse sheaths. Flowers distant, dropping, around 1 to 1.5 cm long. The entire plant almost white to pale cream, flowers white with many pink to purple spots. Sepals and petals linear-oblong with the latter slightly shorter. Lip elliptic, concave, entire with its apex irregularly ridged, the spur short and bulbous.

The Pursuit

A very interesting orchid plant of the region. Just after the first monsoon rains, this plant appears on its habitats from its underground tuber. The whole plant is almost white to cream coloured and devoid of any leaves, can be spotted from a distance even in thick forests. The local population who venture into the forest calls it “Bhooth pautha” (Ghost plant). Due to my regular interactions with the locals, I came to know about the presence of this plant in that region. People who frequented the forests were well aware of its locations and helped me to the exact place of its presence. The location I was shown was near to a stream with too much of undergrowths and huge tall trees. We have to descent from an altitude of 7400 ft to 5800 ft to its location. I had made arrangements with a friend of that area to visit the location regularly and inform me when the plant is in bloom. After a week I got a call from him that he saw the plants as high as 12 to 15 cm and asked me to come there. Unfortunately I was around 180 km away at another place and was waiting for another rare plant to be in bloom. Hence, I was not able to reach to the “Bhooth” in the next three days. On the fourth day I was there around 11 AM. As we were descending down the hill, I found 7 plants together just to the side of the trek inside thick undergrowths. It was a wonderful sight, a cluster of pure white plants in the midst of dense green leafed plants. Then I understood why the locals called it “Bhooth”. I had a nice documentary session there itself with too many leech bites all over my body. Again went down the hill to see the other plants. They were also in bloom, but less in numbers and in height. After that I had seen this plant on three other locations also. All of them were accidental sighting, thus proving this rare species is still there in its natural habitats. Due to some special characteristics of this species, I wanted to visit the plant in the night also. Our trek in the evening got abruptly ended with a furious female bear chasing us all the way out of the forest.

Phalaenopsis taenialis Lindl.

Epiphyte. A plant with a solitary pendulous leaf and numerous spreading, flat roots running into meters. Leaf elliptic-oblong, sessile, tapering to its base, 3 to 7 cm long and 1 to 2 cm in width. Flowers in racemes, longer than the leaves, pendulous, 5 to 9 flowered. Flowers small, 1 to 1.5 cm across. Sepals and petals are pale pink, the epichile of the lip and anther are dark punk, the base of the spur with a faint yellow shade. Sepals unequal, the dorsal lanceolate, the lateral broader than the dorsal, undulate on one side. Petals obovate to spathulate. Both sepals and petals five nerved. Lip adnate to the foot of the column, its hypochile turned into a stout sub-cylindric spur and with two narrow lobes, the epichile oblong, entire.

The Pursuit

This species got long and flat root network, often forming large clusters. In the winter months when most of the trees shed their leaves, its root network can be easily spotted. I spotted the species in the winter months because of this reason. By the early spring, leaf appears on this plant, a single pendulous leaf, from the centre of the root network. Then within a few days a pendulous raceme. I was making a visit to the location every week to ascertain its status. The authors in their monumental work mentioned about the plants producing white flowers too. However, till date there is no photographic evidence for that. Hence, I was looking for more plants from the region, to make sure I would get flowers in white. The search ended up with not much success as I was not able to find more plants from that area. With the start of early monsoon showers, the buds opened. The flowers were so beautiful, but its peculiar lip shape made the documentation time consuming and needed more technical skills than expected. There were seven flowers on the raceme I selected to document. I tried with the lower most flower on the raceme on the first day. Even after several attempts I was not getting the result I desired. The position of the pendulous flowers were also not providing a good opportunity for me to position my flashes. The day ended with much disappointment. Next day I started the journey to the location by Sunrise, determined to rectify the defects of the previous day. The location was around 7400 ft high, deep inside a forest, hence there will always be fog and slight shower. As I was about to reach there, it rained heavily and made my last stretch of trek impossible. One more day ended up on a dissatisfactory mode. The third was a bright day and I reached the place around 8 in the morning to find one more raceme in bloom on another tree. Decided to try to document those flowers and with the help of a local cattle herder, who helped me with holding six micro flashes between his short fingers, produced this wonderful photograph. However, my hunt for those white flowers of this species is still continuing.

Dendrobium transparens Wall.

Epiphyte. Stems erect, slender, long as 15 to 35 cm, with narrow thickening nodes. Leaves linear-lanceolate, 3 to 5 cm long and 1.5 cm in width, apex acute. Flowers 2 to 3 cm across, in pairs from the nodes of leafless stems. Sepals white; petals white flushed with pink; lip white except at its undulate apical lobe which is flushed with pink on its exterior, the disc with a large purple patch and its convolute sides with many streaks of purple. Sepals lanceolate, acute. Petals of the same length as that of petals, ovate and with almost blunt apices. Lip long as sepals, elliptic-obovate, clawed at the base, side lobes convolute, the terminal lobe sub-orbicular with undulate edges.

The Pursuit

When in bloom, this plant attracts the attention of all passing by. It is still fresh in my mind, the first time I saw this plant in bloom. It was inside a tea estate in the plains of the region. The estate was carpeted for miles and miles with fresh grown green leaves. The plant was on the top branch of a dried tree, with many full bloom flowers on leafless erect stems with the blue sky as background. It was one of the amazing sites of my flower hunts.

The plant is a common species of the tropics. Its erect stems are always an easy identification mark. I found this plant two years back during my routine survey and waited for its blooming time. After the first monsoon shower, buds started appearing and it bloomed in the second week. The tree in which I spotted this species was an almost dead and there was a possibility of it falling down soon. My first intention was to protect the tree from falling down, thus saving the habitat of this species. With the help of the estate manager and his workers we fixed five 15 ft tall wooden poles around the tree and tied them with iron wires. The nature enthusiast manager promised to give similar help for any trees in his territory. I was lifted up to the top of the tree on the blade of an earth mover to further safe guard the tree as well as me and my equipments. The close up view of this flower was more amazing. With its pure white petals and pink flushed sepals I think this is the most beautiful Dendrobium flower of the tropics. I was even more happy to have a wonderful position on the blade of the earth mover and produced this wonderful photograph with its pale colour variation well recorded.

Dendrobium rotundatum Benth.

Epiphyte. A pendulous plant with thick woody rhizomes and ovoid pseudo-bulbs arranged 4 to 5 cm apart. Bulbs 2 to 4 cm long partly covered with thin membranous sheaths. Leaves in pairs, oblong, with very short petioles or often sessile, 4 to 7 cm long and around 2 cm in width, apex notched. Flowers solitary, 2 to 3 cm across. Sepals and petals yellowish brown with many veins. Lip yellowish brown, edges of the side lobes with bright orange, apical lobe with a yellow triangle on its mid and the sides with dull purple colour, the base of the lip with two irregular bright orange markings. Sepals spreading, dorsal ovate to lanceolate, lateral pair slightly falcate. Petals narrower than the sepals, lanceolate, arching over the lip. Lip obovate-oblong, side lobes rounded, the disc with three lamellae, apical lobe slightly decurved.

The Pursuit

The most technically perfect orchid photograph of my entire career was of this species. This species even though not common can be easily located hanging down from huge trees in its habitats with very much ease. I found this plant three years earlier and studied it in its habitats. The authors King and Pantling described the flower as pale chestnut brown. While I was studying the flower, its unusual colouration attracted me. The flowers got bright orange stripes and markings, dull purple on its apical lobes and three distinctive bright yellow lamellae. Neither the authors in their monumental book nor any other books published later described those colourations in detail. As a challenge I took up the task of documenting the flower with all those details. The species was in plenty in that region. However, the plants pendulous growth, hanging down tall trees, always stand as a hurdle for precise photography. In the wind the pendulous stems swing to and fro causing great difficulty for my documentation work. The first hurdle was accomplished by finding a plant which was growing down a tree with its main trunk as its support. I selected comparatively a big flower (2.8 cm across!!!!). Studied it in detail to verify all the structures are intact and colouring pattern are perfect. Then the main task of arranging the lighting instruments was undertaken. As carrying several tripods to position flashes are very difficult, I often use locally available bamboos or broken branches from the forest. My intention was to use 8 micro flashes and 2 optical cable lightnings. Calculating the exact positions for each flashes and its angles inside a deep forest is not an easy task. My experience of working with those equipments and terrain always helped me in my field work. The task of taking several photographs, analysing them, rearranging the flashes at different angles to re-shoot, went on for long hours. Finally after a lot of efforts I got this perfect photograph of the species which captured the unknown characteristics of this flower.

Dendrobium porphyrochilum Lindl.

Epiphyte. Pseudo-bulbs cylindric, very small, 0.5 cm to 1.25 cm long and less than 0.5 cm in diameter, extending into a narrow stem of very short length. Leaves 2 to 5, 2 to 4 cm in length and less than 1 cm in width, linear oblong, obliquely notched at the apex. Raceme terminal, 3 to 5 cm in length and with 3 to 7 small flowers. Flowers hardly 2 cm across, sepals and petals pale green with purplish red nerves, lip purplish red with pale green margins. Sepals lanceolate with the lateral pair longer and wider than the dorsal. Petals shorter than the petals, oblong. Lip elliptic, decurved from base, edges entire, apex sub-acute.

The Pursuit

The plants of this species are very small with thin stems and narrow leaves. In the Eastern Himalayas it is seen growing around sub-alpine regions only. I was so eager to see this plant and was searching it for more than three years. It blooms along with the start of monsoon season. Due to the rains the forest floors will be full of undergrowths and leeches, this makes it very difficult to work in sub-alpine forests. All the small trees will be full of fresh leaves and finding a small epiphytic plant from those thick forested terrains will be very difficult. For a whole week I was searching for this plant on various locations. The thick forest floor prevented intrusion deep inside and I could not locate the species. I had decided to search this species where the undergrowth may not be so dense. Suddenly I spotted some area on the hill slope which was washed away due to a landslide of the previous monsoon. The landslide had taken away all the undergrowths and left the slope with a few trees only. I had an intuition that this species will be there on those trees. Slowly and carefully I climbed down the slope and searched the first tree. Unfortunately there was nothing, not even a small plant, on any of its branches. Tried the next 4 trees, the result was the same. Again I climbed down and searched more than 10 to 15 trees and found 7 plants of this species. The plants were very small and without any buds. It took several risky and dangerous treks on that slope for another five weeks to see those plants in bloom and produced this wonderful photograph.

Dendrobium ruckeri Lindl.

Epiphytic. Stems pendulous, branched and slender, as long as 20 to 30 cm. Leaves lanceolate, acute, 4 to 7 cm long and about 2 cm in width. Flowers 2 to 3 cm across, leaf opposed, solitary. Sepals and petals yellow; lip with numerous brown streaks margined with yellow; the disc crest is greenish yellow. Dorsal sepal elliptic, narrowed towards the apex; lateral sepals much broader, blunt. Petals slightly shorter than the lateral sepals, oblong, sub-spathulate, blunt. Lip much curved from its auricled base; the side lobes large, broad; the terminal lobe sub-orbicular, bifid, deflexed; the disc with a central papillose crest.

The Pursuit

This is one of the rarest of all Dendrobiums of the region. In my three years of study in the region, I found only 4 plants. Even though I found this plant two seasons earlier, I had to put a lot of hard work to see them in bloom. The location was at 4800 ft on the edge of a protected area. The motorable road which connected my place of stay and the nearest trek road to the location was at altitude of 380 ft. From that 380 ft to 4800 ft, the trek was almost vertical. The most difficult trek I had ever made in the region. The route was through the edge of a vertical steep rocky mountain almost straight up the hill. The trek though a zig-zag route will always be safer than a straight climb. This location was on the fringes of a protected area, as such the villagers were not given permission by the authorities to build a wider and safer trek route there fearing habitat loss of some rare trees of that forest. Every day the climb took more than 4 hours. The plant also showed very unusual behaviour. The buds took considerably long time to be in bloom. As I was had minimum literature on this species I was unable to judge its blooming time. Since I did not want to miss those flowers that particular season and the rarity of the species made me regularly visit the location. For 17 days I took that steep route to the location, and worked for more than 14 hours a day including the long drive from my place of stay. Finally, I produced this wonderful photograph, probably the only one of its kind from its natural habitat.

Dendrobium aphyllum (Roxb.) C.E.C.Fisch.

Epiphyte. Stems as long as 2 to 5 ft, pendulous, smooth, slightly swollen at the nodes. Leaves 2 to 5 cm long and 1 to 2 cm in width, thick, lanceolate, tapering towards its tip, sessile (the leaves fall much early). Flowers 2 to 3 cm across, 1 to 4 in numbers from very short peduncles from the nodes of leafless stems. Sepals and petals are pale pink networked with darker shade; lip pale yellow to white with a few purple streaks on the tubular base and its mouth. Sepals sub-equal, oblong-lanceolate, sub-acute. Petals much broader than the sepals, elliptic, blunt. Lip sub-orbicular, side lobes absent, the disc hairy, the base convolute to take the shape of a tube.

Dendrobium pierardi, Roxb (Dendrobium aphyllum (Roxb) — Dendrobium pierardi Roxb (Dendrobium aphyllum Roxb).

The Pursuit

Come April and May, the tropical valleys of the region are full of this species in bloom. Pendulous huge clusters with hundreds of flowers can easily be spotted on most of the trees, dancing gently to the tune of morning and afternoon tropical winds. The only difficulty for people like me, is that it got a wide mouthed hairy lip which attracts all dust from those topical environment. I examined a lot of flowers to get a perfect dust free flower in vain. I understood the fact that, like many other flowers this also needed to be shot as early as it opens. We never expected to extend our stay at that place after dusk and hence were not carrting our camping equipments. As we are very known to most of the village people one night stay was not be a problem. However, I slept in the open on the banks of the mighty Teesta. My friend who accompanied me collected a lot of fallen dry leaves and dug out the sand on that river bank to make a soft natural sleeping bed for me and I had a comfortable sleep there. The next day we were up before the first light of the Sun and climbed up the tree looking for a few perfect flowers to shoot. Got this beautiful bunch and produced this wonderful photograph without much difficulty. The tragedy of this species is that in the year 2012 this species was illegally collected by the locals for some outsiders who were active with some cross border trade. It took several weeks for the administration to notice the disappearance of this species, by then most of the plants were inside the laboratories thousands of miles away.

Dendrobium nobile Lindl.

Epiphyte. Stems, 30 to 60 cm or even longer, erect, widening to the apex. Leaves 4 to 6 cm in length and around 2 cm in width, oblong, apex sub-obtuse and notched, narrowed to the base, coriaceous. Flowers in short racemes from the nodes of leafy as well leafless stems, number various between 1 and 5, each 3 to 5 cm across. Sepals and petals are purple turning white at the base; lip with a deep purple blotch surrounded with white flushed with pale yellow and a purple mucro. Sepals sub-equal, the dorsal oblong-elliptic, the lateral oblong. Petals broader than the sepals, elliptic. Both sepals and petals many veined. Lip broadly ovate-oblong, hairy inside, the apex slightly and mucronate.

The Pursuit

The State Flower of Sikkim. Once a common species of the tropical valleys, collected in large numbers for commercial purposes made it very scarce in its natural habitats. Sir. George King and Robert Pantling described the colouration of flower in detail and I was looking for a perfect match from various locations. However, in most of the cases the description about its sepals and petals was never matched. As per their noting,“the sepals and petals are always purple shading off into a white base”. I decided to look for this species in other locations also. The work I undertook was first of its kind from the region and I wanted it to produce better results. With that intention I visited several locations for this species, to find the exact colouration of flowers as described by the great authors. On high altitudes (above 3800 ft) the flowers are found to be more purplish and at very low altitudes (in the hot valleys of River Teesta) they were more towards a paler shade. Hence, I decided to find the species from an intermediate altitude of 1800 to 2600 ft. I searched for four days in a new location at 2200 ft for this species in vain. Even though I found a lot of them in bloom in some homes, I decided to find a few plants from its natural habitat itself. A young boy of that village, who used to venture deep into the forest, helped me to find a few plants inside the forest. Most of the stems were with full bloom flowers. In those areas the trees are often with many branches which enable easy climbing. We both climbed up to examine those flowers and to my surprise found that the colouration is exactly the same as described by the pioneers of orchids around 120 years ago. It seems the authors also collected the species from around the same altitude for their monumental work. As usual when in plenty, it will be very difficult to find a perfect one to photograph. After climbing several trees found this perfect bunch of flowers and produced this amazing photograph of this Himalayan beauty. This species is a prime example of variations caused due to altitude difference. Even though many species survive on a wide range of altitudes, all of them got their own perfect habitats.