Orchids are the most diverse family of angiosperms, with over 25 000 species,more than mammals, birds and reptiles combined. Tests of hypotheses to account for such diversity have been stymied by the lack of a fully resolved broad-scale phylogeny. Here,we provide such a phylogeny, based on 75 chloroplast genes for 39 species representing all orchid subfamilies and 16 of 17 tribes, time-calibrat...

The population of many splendid orchids is reducing from their natural habitats at an alarming rate and their conservation is becoming a matter of global concern. Asymbiotic seed germination has been applied for ex situ conservation of rare, endangered and threatened orchid taxa and could provide rapid means their multiplication. In the present study reported here, seeds of an epiphytic and rar...

Cymbidium, one of the most important orchid genera in horticulture, can be classified into epiphytic and terrestrial species. Generally, epiphytic Cymbidium seedlings can be easily propagated by tissue culture, but terrestrial seedlings are difficult to propagate. To date, the molecular mechanisms underlying the differences in the ease with which terrestrial and epiphytic cymbidiums can be prop...

Herbal medicine has been practiced worldwide in accordance with the recognition of WHO as an essential building block for preliminary healthcare. India, as a rich biodiverse country, has a long history of traditional system of medicine. Orchids, one of the largest diverse angiospermic group of the family Orchidaceae, have occupied a distinct place in human life in terms of their beautiful flowe...

Predicting population dynamics for rare species is of paramount importance in order to evaluate the likelihood of extinction and planning conservation strategies. However, evaluating and predicting population viability can be hindered from a lack of data. Rare species frequently have small populations, so estimates of vital rates are often very uncertain due to lack of data. We evaluated the vi...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Dendrobium longicornu, commonly known as the 'Long-horned Dendrobium', is an endangered and medicinally important epiphytic orchid. Over-exploitation and habitat destruction seriously threaten this orchid in Northeast India. Our objective was to develop an efficient protocol for the mass propagation of D. longicornu using axillary bud segments. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL RE...

Sucrose-phosphate synthase (SPS) is one of the key regulatory enzymes in carbon assimilation and partitioning in plants. It plays a crucial role in the production of sucrose in photosynthetic cells. The cloning and expression analysis of a full-length cDNA encoding SPS from tropical epiphytic orchid hybrid Oncidium Goldiana are reported here. The cDNA designated as sps1 is 3820 bp in length wit...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Microsatellite loci were developed for the epiphytic pencil orchid Dendrobium calamiforme for population genetic and phylogeographic investigation of this Australian taxon. METHODS AND RESULTS Nineteen microsatellite loci were identified from an Illumina paired-end shotgun library of D. calamiforme. Polymorphism and genetic diversity were assessed in 24 individuals from f...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Mutualistic ant-plant associations are common in a variety of plant families. Some myrmecophytic plants, such as the epiphytic orchid Caularthron bilamellatum, actively form hollow structures that provide nesting space for ants (myrmecodomatia), despite a substantial loss of water-storage tissue. This study aimed at assessing the ability of the orchid to take up nitrogen fro...