Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas – Page 2 – Naresh Swami | The Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya

Ponerorchis nana (King and Pantling) Soó.

The Plant

Terrestrial. Whole plant 6 to 9 cm in height. Tuber single, 0.75 to 1 cm long and less than 0.75 cm in width at its widest part, ovate to orbicular, with 3 to 4 short and thick roots arising from it along with a few thin fibrous roots. Stem cylindrical, thick, arising from the apex of the bulb and less than one-third in height of the whole plant, covered with the petiole of the leaf and with a long clasping lanceolate sheath at its base. Leaf solitary, arising from the apex of the stem, lanceolate to oblanceolate, 2 to 3 cm long and 1.2 cm in width at its widest part, sessile, base clasping and narrowed to a long petiole. Flowers two, arranged at the topmost portion of a long cylindrical and faintly ribbed terminal spike, secund.

The Flower

Flowers large, 2.5 to 3 cm long diagonally. Sepals un-equal, the dorsal much smaller than that of the lateral. Dorsal sepal oblanceolate, diagonally erect and not touching the petals, its base margins curved forward to form a wide boat like structure. Lateral sepals larger than the dorsal, ovate, spreading and curved upwards, margins undulate and sickle shaped at its base. Petals as long as the dorsal sepal, oblong to oval, curved forward with its apex overlapping or touching each other. Lip longer and wider than the lateral sepals, obcordate in outline, with faintly cut apex forming mid and side lobes; apex of both mid and side lobes rounded. Spur as long as the ovary and the lip, cylindrical, straight, slightly compressed. Floral bract lanceolate, erect, longer than the ovary but diminishing to less than half in length in the apex flower and arising from the upper base of it.

Stem pink at its base turning dark brown towards its apex, the sheath at the base of the stem is creamy white with brown reticulations. Floral spike pale green at its base and turning dark pink towards its apex.

Sepals and petals pink to dark rose. Lip of the same shade but with irregular dark shaded patches and white markings at its base surrounding the mouth of the spur. Spur pale pink. Ovary brownish pink. Floral bract dark brown to reddish brown.

Note: Described as Orchis chusua Don. var nana King and Pantling., by the authors in the Ann. Roy. Bot. Gard. (Calcutta) 8:304 (1898), during their monumental work on orchids from the region of Sikkim-Himalayas. Later on, many authors moved the variety to Gymnadenia and Ponerorchis, with some retaining it as Orchis. According to present Kew Database on World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, the variety got merged with the Ponerorchis chusua (D.Don) Soó., which is entirely another plant growing at a different altitude and habitat with all together different characteristics. This author is of the concerned opinion, by discovering the variety again and conducting a detailed in-situ study, that the above variety should be described as Ponerorchis nana (King and Pantling) Soó. (Reference: Acta Bot. Acad. Sci. Hung. 12:353 (1966)). Interestingly, the plant has its own Alba, thus making it a species by its own characteristics.

Ponerorchis nana (King and Pantling) Soó.

The Pursuit

A plant which went undocumented for some 125 years after its first report from the region of Sikkim-Himalayas. Even after several exploration and expedition trips year after year in the region by many research scholars, the variety remained untraced, thus was merged with its species form.

I was not able to find any related documents or photographs of this variety during my pre-survey work. However, the variety was a top priority in my list of pursuit.

After a thrilling trek I succeeded to find the species form, that too by the second half of the flowering season. As the flowering season would be over soon, I was of the opinion that the variety may not be found. By the end of the third month, I was regularly accompanied by a very kindhearted forest staff. We regularly took uphill drive, courtesy Army convoy, and surveyed many new areas every day. The results were amazing with many new finds.

We planned a trip to one of the most remote valleys of the region by the end of the third month. The valley was around 27 km of trek from the place of last motorable road. The only human settlements in the valley were of security people guarding the borders. Hence, entry and research into that valley were highly restricted and needed multiple permissions from various agencies. Luckily, I was granted permission to work there. However, the other official who accompanies me was denied permission by the authorities. Thus I was left all alone to work in that remote area.

It took almost 13 hours of trek for me to reach there. Even though I encountered many plants in flower, I was left with no option than walking as fast as I could, so to reach the camp before sun set. Next day morning, I ventured into the valley, a real botanical paradise. The long trek of the previous day has made my feet swollen; it was very difficult to fit both my feet into my boots. I was forced to borrow a bigger sized boot of a soldier from the camp. Even with those swollen feet I took a trek along the only stream of the valley. Thousands of flowers were in full bloom all along the river. I felt it would be better to crawl along the ground so that I would not miss any of those flowers. Interestingly no orchids were spotted for the first three hours of my survey in that new world.

As I was returning to the camp for lunch, I met a patrol party of soldiers returning to the camp after their routine border patrol. As always, soldiers raise a lot of question regarding any outsider’s visit. While explaining to them about my nature of duty, one of them took his mobile and shown me some photographs of flowers he had captured. I was so disappointed to see no orchid photograph from his hundreds of flower photographs. In return of his generosity, I took out my Ipad to show them my photograph collections of orchids. As they were going through the photographs, I explained to them what an orchid look like. Suddenly, he opened his mobile again to show a few other photographs he stored in another folder. They were only a few, but one of them, a damaged plant was like the one I was looking for – the variety which was unheard and unseen for more than a century. However, he was not able to remember from where he found the plant.

As I was determined to locate the plant, I planned my next three in such a way that I could cover most of the areas. The first day went without any trace of the plant even after surveying many miles. The second day was disrupted with morning showers, later on, the day became clear with sunshine and I was out to another location in search of the plant. The day ended without any success, even though some other interesting Alpine flowers were spotted.

On the third day, I went to a higher open meadow, which had a small lake in the middle. As I was walking along its bank, I spotted few very small plants with pink to rose flowers growing next to some small scattered rocks. They were hardly 5 to 7 cm in height. I never thought next moment I am going to create history by re-discovering a plant not found for more than a century. I went near to the plant and on close observation I was sure it was the one I was looking for. The find made me speechless; the joy boundless. I settled down on the ground to normalize my heartbeat and breathe and produced some real great photographs of the plant.

Reference:

King, G. & Pantling, R. (1898). The Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas. Ann. Roy. Bot. Garden. (Calcutta). Orchis chusua Don. var nana King and Pantling., Page no 304.

Ponerorchis chusua (D.Don) Soó.

The Plant

Terrestrial. Whole plant 12 to 26 cm in height. Tuber two, unequal and attached to each other with a small fleshy attachment, obelliptic to obovate, 1 to 1.5 cm long and about 1 cm in width at its widest part, naked. The new and small tuber developing to a matured one for the corresponding year. Stem arising from the apex of the matured tuber, almost two-third in height of the whole plant, cylindrical, naked and minutely narrowing towards its apex, faintly ribbed. Leaves two, unequal, arranged distance apart, 2 to 5 cm long and less than 1 cm in width, oblanceolate with broader base, sessile and clasping. The lower more than twice long as the upper one. Flowers 4 to 7 in a terminal spike much narrow than the stem, not secund.

The Flower

Flowers 2 to 2.5 cm long diagonally. Sepals un-equal; dorsal smaller than the lateral, lanceolate to ovate, arching over the petals, one nerved; lateral ovate with narrowing and wavy apex, spreading, three nerved. Petals slightly longer than the dorsal sepal, ovate, arranged forward with curving and over-lapping apex, one nerved. Lip distinctly and deeply three lobed, mid and side lobes as long as the lateral sepals; mid lobe narrow and short than the side lobes, oblong; lateral diverging, obelliptic with wider apex and sickle curve inner margins, apex margin with many wide round teeth. Spur longer than the lip and the ovary, slightly curved, cylindrical with wide base and apex, tip rounded. Leaf bract of varying size, diminishing towards the apex of the plant, lanceolate, erect or horizontal, 1 to 4 cm long and less than 1 cm in width, three nerved, arising from the upper base of the ovary.

Stem pale green reticulated with pink throughout, except near to the base of the two leaves, where it is pale green. Floral spike of a darker pinkish brown shade.

Sepals and petals pinkish white turning pale pink towards its apex with many irregular darker spots and markings. Lip of a darker pinkish shade throughout with a few distinct elongated spots on its base margining the mouth of the spur, the mid lobe also got few irregular markings of the same dark shade. Spur pinkish white at its base turning pale pink to its apex. Floral bract brownish green on its upper portion and pinkish brown on its lower portion.

The Pursuit

A beautiful small plant of the Alpine slopes, spread across half the length of the globe, from the mountains Siberia to the Himalayas. During my research time I searched many books by Indian “scientists” for a good documentary evidence (photograph) of this plant in vain. However, many lengthy articles were published on this species. As there was no proper documentary evidence for reference on this species, the species found a special mention in my list for the Alpine hunt.

King and Pantling had mentioned its altitude between 10,000 and 13,000 ft and blooming period as July and August. I moved to the high alpine areas by the first week of June and was working relatively in the lower altitudes during the first month. By July, I became very much accustomed with the high alpine region and was able to cover many unexplored regions and discovered several undocumented species. But, this one remained elusive. The description of the species and an analysis of its other habitats across the globe prompted me to concentrate on wet open slopes for the species. In the alpine region, the higher we go the drier the slopes are. However, the region in mention by King and Pantling comes in the wet zone, especially in the monsoon months between June and August.

Several days went by without a trace of the species. As those days were my first visit to the alpine zone, I was travelling all over the region every day. Repeated failures to locate the species in vain prompted me to assume that the species may have gone extinct. As the area I was covered was negligible in comparison to the vast Himalayas, I was certain I would find it from another habitat. Hence, I moved to another location in pursuit of the species.

On the fifth day at my new location, during our breakfast meeting my local guide informed about an open valley surrounded by very high mountains. He also explained to me the difficult climb up an 18,450 ft high pass to reach the location. I was eager to visit the location, however the guide was very much reluctant to accompany. It took a couple of days to convince him to accompany me. Another two days also went past in organising the journey including yaks to carry tent and other necessary food items for the 6 day up and down trek and a couple of days stay in the valley. The journey was very tedious; the uphill climb was very hard. We were able to trek hardly for 4 hours a day. On the second day, we camped at the top of the pass at 18,450 ft. While pitching tent, the strong winds blew our tent downhill. We were forced to spend the remaining part of the day and night inside the erected tent, so that our weight would prevent the winds from blowing away the tent. On the third day, we descended down to the valley to a much lower altitude of around 16,750 ft, which was more than 20 to 25 sq. km. wide. Even though, the trek was tedious and hard, I found a couple of rare species during this trek.

Early next morning, I started my pursuit in this new habitat, thus becoming the first botanist to step foot there. As the valley was surrounded by high hills, there were no winds; the air was steady. Even the percentage of oxygen was high, easing our breath. The first two hours went enjoying various flora of the new “world” and documenting some other Alpine flowers. As I was surveying the banks of a narrow stream, I stumbled across a patch of this species with most of them in bloom. The plants were with unnoticeably small narrow leaves and wide pink flowers. They were all growing near to each other thus making a carpet of pale pink. The habitat was about 12 to 15 ft wide and some 20 ft in length. Even though not precise, I counted about 45 specimens in that habitat. To select a few plants to document from a beautiful set of plants was always a very difficult task. Each one seems to be better than the other.

Finally, I zeroed on seven plants for study and documentation and produced some perfect documentary evidences, probably for the first time in the history of the species from the region. We spent another six days there re-discovering another few species, thus creating history. The return journey was made very tedious with the blessings of the rain god.

Reference:

King, G. & Pantling, R. (1898). The Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas. Ann. Roy. Bot. Garden. (Calcutta). Orchis chusua Don., Page no 303/304.

Calanthe puberula Lindl.

The Plant

Terrestrial. Pseudo-bulbs small, less than 2 cm long, ovoid with conical apex, with several long stout roots arising from its base. Pseudo-stem about 2 to 3 cm long, sheathed with two lanceolate bracts, with the upper one more than twice longer than the lower smaller one. Leaves four to five, unequal with undulate margins and veined surface, elliptic, acuminate, narrowed to the sheathed base, 5 to 8 cm long and 2 to 4 cm in width. Flower many, laxly arranged, in a peduncle arising amongst the leaves, usually single rarely two. Peduncle much longer than the leaves, with an erect lanceolate bract around its middle. Raceme minute ribbed as well as puberulous.

The Flower

Flowers 2 to 3 cm across, facing diagonally down. Sepals unequal, lanceolate with broad base; dorsal erect; lateral longer than the dorsal, the basal margin curved upwards towards its upper side and spreading behind the ovary to form a sickle shape; dorsal and sepal three veined. Petals erect, very narrow, longer than the dorsal sepal, linear with pointed apex, spreading, one veined. The base of the lip adnate with the column, three lobed; basal diverging, oblong, blunt; the apical lobe broadly quadrate with short fimbriated margins and pointed tip, its base converging and extending to a narrow short broad linear base. The disc with two narrow short calli arranged between the basal lobes. Floral bract lanceolate, curved up, arising from the base side of the stalked and decurved ovary, shorter than the latter.

Sepals and petals translucent, pale lavender. The basal lobe of the lip pale pink, the dorsal with a triangular shade of the same colour with white margins and a long narrow white separation running through its middle. The disc with two long parallel irregular broken dark pink markings. The column yellow with dark pink markings. Ovary pale brownish pink. Floral bract green.

The Pursuit

In the first year of my orchid hunt of the region I planned to visit the location of this beautiful species. One of my local contacts in the region had seen this plant from a place quite far away from my base camp. Due to various reasons I missed that trip for a few months and was able to go for the hunt by the mid of September only. By that time it had bloomed and its seedpods were dry. When the habitat is located it will be only a matter of re-visiting it at the time of its bloom the next season. Hence, I was happy with my local contact for guiding me to make this find.

The next year I planned the trip in the month of June itself along with the start of monsoon rains. However, the long winding road to the location got blocked with several landslides and reaching the location turned out to be impossible. I tried several short cuts to bypass those landslides but without much success. I was really disappointed with the natural events. It is the worst nightmare for any explorer for not being able to reach the location of a find. Finally, after many efforts I decided to look for another locations for this species.

In the third year of my research, I was camping in a protected area during the monsoon months. The forests there were sub-tropical to sub-alpine and I was able to find many ground orchids from the region. But this species remained elusive. Inside the protected area there were two narrow streams. The steams were with full flow around the year. In summer because of the melting snow in the high hills, in monsoon due of rains and in winter due to several springs downstream. Those wet surroundings of the two streams are always home to several plants and ground orchids, especially annuals. I concentrated on the banks of one of the streams for this plant. I trekked along the banks of the stream on its entire length to look for this plant. As both the sides of the stream are of vertical steep mountains I was forced to walk in waist high waters of the river. This made the trek very difficult. The higher I went the denser the forest, with the presence of many wild animals that frequently visited the stream. I was always exposed to danger due to the wildlife. Camping inside the forest was impossible, which made me walk back to my base camp every day after my hunt. By the mid of July it was time to move to another place. I had only three more days at that place and I decided to move much deeper inside the forest to look for this species.

On the penultimate day, I took a route never ever used even by the forest patrol party. The new route took me so deep inside the forest and for the first time in my entire work in the region of Sikkim-Himalayas I encountered a leopard and a bear the same day, that also within a span of 15 minutes!!! I always felt that I get more courage to venture into deep forest after encountering wildlife. My instant courage helped me survey a vast area on that day and finally found this species, a set of 15 plants scattered over a small area under thick undergrowth. Of the 15 plants 4 were in buds. Buds means more and more visits to the place in the coming days. As I haven’t found this species from any other locations there were no other options other than visiting that location in the coming days. I never advocated the practice of others researchers who took plants to their homes and research laboratories to have it in flower. On the way back I made several reference points to negotiate my coming trips to that deep area. On comparison with the measurements of buds taken and that of the reference book made me understand that those buds will bloom within 7 to 10 days. As the species got many flowers and they bloom one by one from the bottom of the peduncle, if late by a couple of days also I will get one or other flower in bloom. The next day I moved to the new location. From there I visited this location on the ninth day and was accompanied by another researcher of the region. Even though he was not working on orchids, the locals of the region and I suspected that he collected many orchids for others. Hence, none were happy with his presence. But, sometimes due to compulsions I am in company of such personalities. We reached the location on the previous evening and rested at the base camp.

Early morning with pack lunch, we proceeded to the location. As we ventured very deep inside the dense forest, my friend was not willing to accompany us. His usual research trips were on the fringes of forests and he was not at all accustomed with wild life areas. Then it came from the horse’s mouth itself, that, “I want to return”. He tried several attempts to take my assistant along with him to safeguard his return journey. My assistant gifted him one of our lunch packs and said “namaste dhaju” (Dhaju means elder brother). After he disappeared from our eyes we proceeded to the location by taking reference from the markings we made on our last return journey. Till our friend was there with us we never discussed about the references we made for our journey as we feared he might pass on that vital information to plant collectors of the region. We reached the spot without much difficulty to see several of them in bloom. I selected the freshly bloomed flowers and made this wonderful photograph. Also, the in-situ study of the species made reveal many new characteristics of the species, which were not even described by the pioneers in their monumental work.

The return journey was also breathtaking, with a female leopard following us for almost an hour!!!

Reference:

King, G. & Pantling, R. (1898). The Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas. Ann. Roy. Bot. Garden. (Calcutta). Calanthe puberula Lindl., Page no 166.

Calanthe trulliformis King and Pantling.

The Plant

Terrestrial. Pseudo-bulbs very small, oblong to cylindrical, less than 1.5 cm long, with many stout long roots. Pseudo-stem short, about 2 cm long. Leaves 4 to 5, narrow, linear- lanceolate, acute, erect and arching diagonally, sessile, distinctly veined, 7 to 12 cm long and 1.5 to 2 cm in width. Flowers in a peduncle longer than the leaves, arising from the inside of the outer leaf, flowers arranged laxly at the top quarter of the peduncle, the peduncle with a single erect, large lanceolate bract around the middle of it.

The Flower

Flowers 1.5 to 3 cm across, erect. Sepals sub-equal, lanceolate, much narrowed towards apex; dorsal erect; lateral spreading; surface and margins irregularly curving, three veined. Petals narrow than the sepals, lanceolate, spreading, surface and margins irregularly curving, one veined. Base of the lip adnate with the column, side lobes absent, trowel shaped with few irregular rounded lobes at its margins, much narrowed to its apex. The disc with two lamellae converging from its base and running parallel to two-third of its length, puberulous to its apex. The opening of the mouth is triangular in shape with its interior covered with fine hairs. Spur short, cylindrical with rounded apex, minutely puberulosus. Ovary stalked, curved and puberulous. Floral bract erect, lanceolate, as long and arising from the lower base of the stalked ovary.

Sepals with long varying sized purplish brown margins running parallel to its veins, broader at its base and diminishing and disappearing to its apex. Petals as same as the sepals, but the purplish brown margins are broken or irregular in length. Lip creamy white with its base with pink margins, the inside base of the converging lamellae are also marked with pink. The fine hairs on the opening of the spur is pure white. Spur creamy white, translucent. Floral bract dark green. The exterior of the sepals and petals are green with few darker veins.

Calanthe trulliformis, King and Pantling. — Calanthe trulliformis King and Pantling.

The Pursuit

Another beautiful Calanthe of the region, but very rarely found or documented from its natural habitats. In the description of this species in the monumental work, the authors mentioned “Mahaldaram Peak” as its habitat. Even with that reference also no researchers were able to locate it from its natural habitat till now from the region.

In the year 2012, with my alpine region flower hunt, I was able to visit many densely forested hills and mountains of the region during the monsoon season. Monsoon months are generally the blooming time of most of the Calanthes. Hence, I was determined to locate this species also.

Several visits to Mahaldaram Peak never yielded any result in finding this species. With my studies on orchids of the region, I found several orchid species showing proximity to many trees and plants of the region and were also found growing near to those same trees and plants from different region too. Hence, I particularly collected more details of some trees and plants of the region. I was very much confident that if this species was growing at this peak during the work of King and Pantling, the trees and plants here will help me in finding the species from some other region. Hence, during my visit to several other places I was looking for the same trees and plants of the Mahaldaram Peak. The monsoon season is full of activities in the hills with many plants flowering and many animals breeding. The breeding time of animals are not the best time time to be inside deep forests, as they attack any intruders into their territory. Frequent visits were not possible to all locations due to inclement weather and road blocks due to heavy monsoon showers. But I always tried to utilise the days maximum with regular surveys. Once during the peak monsoon days I was very far away in a dense forested area in connection with another find. I came across many of the same species trees and plants of the Mahaldaram Peak. I shared the information to my assistant that there is a possibility of finding this species there as the region’s habitat is as close to that of Mahaldaram Peak. I shown him the drawing of the species by Pantling and requested him to search other areas while I concentrate on documenting another species. After the documentation was done I also started searching for the species. Presence of a leopard with its new born cubs made both of us search together. The plant is very small and looking for it from thick undergrowths on a wet rainy day was very difficult. As the days are with many flowering orchids across the region, my days were very busy traveling length and breadth of the region. Hence, each and every hour matters and I am very particular to use the hours available at the maximum.

By evening, we found three small plants very similar to this species. As one more Calanthe resembles this in plant form, it was not sure whether it was this species itself. I visited the place several times in the next 20 days to see the growth progress of those plants. Finally, after around one month it produced a long peduncle. By studying the features of the peduncle I understood this is the species I am looking for. It took another 3 weeks to the flowers to open and to produce this wonderful photograph. By that time my travel log book got 17 records of visits to this location, which was more than any other species finds.

However, in the year 2013, I found 2 more plants of this species from another location of the region accidentally. As I was trekking to a high altitude location I found two of them from the near to the trek route, one in buds and the other in bloom. As I was in a hurry I haven’t documented the flowers on that occasion, but I noted down many other trees and plants of that location only to prove my findings of plant to plant relationships.

Reference:

King, G. & Pantling, R. (1898). The Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas. Ann. Roy. Bot. Garden. (Calcutta). Calanthe trulliformis King and Pantling, Page no 168.

Calanthe tricarinata Lindl.

The Plant

Terrestrial. Pseudo-bulbs small, ovoid, 1 to 1.5 cm long, with many stout roots. Pseudo-stem 4 to 6 cm long. Leaves three, unequal, oblanceolate, acute, much narrowed to its base, with short petiole, veined, 7 to 12 cm and 2 to 4 cm wide, petiole 1 to 1.5 cm long. Flowers many, laxly arranged, in a long erect peduncle arising amongst the leaves. Raceme less than half in length of peduncle.

The Flower

Flowers 2 to 4 cm across, pendulous. Sepals sub-equal, lanceolate; dorsal minutely wider than the lateral pair, apex margins curved to form a boat like structure, diagonally erect; lateral curved forward, apex like that of dorsal; both 1 to 3 veined. Petals as long as the lateral sepals, linear with pointed apex, curved forward, 1 veined. Lip broadly oblong, decurved, three lobed. The base forming a rounded cavity like depression with a didymous puberulous callus on the apex to its entrance. The basal lobes linear, spreading with its rounded apex curved up. The apical lobe oblong, obtuse, decurved, edges undulate, its disc with three parallel projecting ridges running its entire length with the middle one longer than the other two. Floral bracts very small, lanceolate, clasping, arising from the lower side of the stalked ovary.

Sepals and petals pale green. Outside of the sepals with few dark veins. The base of the lip pinkish purple, its callus creamy white. Basal lobes pale cream. The disc and the ridges of the apical lobe are reddish to purple turning white to the lip margin. Floral bract translucent, pale green.

The Pursuit

The alpine region starts around 8700 ft and above. According to the text of King and Pantling, the altitudinal range of this species was at 6000 ft. Hence, I never included this species in my search list for the alpine region. My place of stay was in a village around 8500 ft, their electricity was provided from a small hydro power station located near a huge waterfall. The village was provided with 24 hours of power supply, a very rare phenomenon in the Himalayas. However, due to some technical reasons coupled with hidden political agenda of people in authority, the generators of the power house went silent and authorities decided to construct a new power station with more production capacity a couple of kilometers away from the water falls. The contract was given to a private company, which brought in people from the plains of India to work there. As I was also staying in that village I developed a good friendship with some of the workers. They were fixing a huge iron pipe to carry water to the powerhouse from the waterfalls. The entire slope of the hill was cleared to fix several concrete pillars to support the iron pipeline. Every day I observed with distress the destruction happening to the floral population on that hill.

I moved to higher altitudes to document other in bloom. While I was camping much higher in the region, I received a vague message. It was sent by a driver of a transport vehicle carrying fresh vegetables to security personnel manning the high altitude posts. The message was short – “some flower in bloom, come down immediately”. In that region communication links are not available to verify the news or even proper transportation facilities to move around at ease. Hence, I decided to come down in the same vehicle when it returns after unloading the vegetables. I reached downhill by 6 PM in the evening and went to the camp office of the new construction company from where they had sent the message. On enquiry the person who was in the office confirmed that they found some plants in bloom and they believe it was an orchid and wanted me to see it. The word “orchid” made my adrenaline counts go up.

By then it was dark and climbing up hill was not possible. So I retired to rest in one of their cabins with my mind unrest with many thoughts on all possible species. During dinnertime, one of their staff came to me and shown a photograph he had taken on his mobile phone. He said that while they were clearing the slope they spotted this plant in bloom and wanted me to see it. I was surprised to see the photograph of this species. Till that time I never thought I will find this species from the alpine region. I had a sleepless night, as every time I closed my eyes the photograph of the plant in bloom was interrupting my sleep.

Next morning, I was up early to walk up the hill to the location of the plant. After a steep climb of around 30 minutes we were there. There were three plants, with several flowers, but mostly withered. One plant was left with two open flowers. I was disappointed that nobody noticed three plants before all its flowers withered off. I was left with no options other than be satisfied with those two flowers. I tried my level best to produce the best of the results from those two flowers. With God’s grace I succeeded in that.

My next priority was to make sure the construction activities going on the hill slope should not destroy the plants. I had a discussion with the man who is in charge of the whole work and explained to him the importance of the plant and its find. He was convinced to some extend and he fenced that small area to prevent any destruction. To date the iron fence still stands there protecting this species, with five plants appearing this season. I too made improvements in my notes and the documentary evidences by re-visiting those plants!!!

Reference:

King, G. & Pantling, R. (1898). The Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalayas. Ann. Roy. Bot. Garden. (Calcutta). Calanthe tricarinata Lindl., Page no 166.