New Orchid Specie Found in Panama

Researcher from the United States and Mexico have depicted another orchid species from a mountainous region in focal Panama. You may stumble this orchid specie in your next Panama excursions.

The Orchid family known as Orchidaceae, contains the biggest number of plant species on the planet – up to 30,000. Panama alone has around 1,100 known species. 

Orchids are special in that the bloom's female and male regenerative parts are combined. They can without much of a stretch hybridize or cross and, accordingly, almost 300,000 orchid mixtures are man-made and industrially accessible to the general population. 

The newfound plant has been named Lophiaris silverarum. 

The specie belongs with Lophiaris, an orchid class that contains comprises of 25 species and 3 characteristic half breeds found in southern Florida, the West Indies, from northern Mexico to southern Brazil and northern Argentina. 

Lophiaris silverarum, portrayed in a paper in the diary Phytotax), is known to develop just in central Panama. The plant sprouts in November, the blossoms enduring around a month. 

“Orchids are a difficult and confusing taxonomic group. People who specialize in the Orchid family usually spend years naming different species based on DNA and morphology. Sometimes plants can look alike morphologically, but DNA informs us that they are very different species, which makes naming the species difficult,” explained Dr Katia Silvera from the University of California, Riverside, who, along with her father, discovered the new species.

“The diversity of orchids is best seen in the tropics, where, unfortunately, habitat is being destroyed very fast. As a result, we are rapidly losing the diversity of orchid species. Although there are many orchid species unnamed in nature, it is actually quite difficult to determine for sure that an orchid is unnamed. They are difficult to find and difficult to tell apart.”

“Orchid species are the raw materials for hybrids, and there is a lot to discover about how these species evolved and became such a successful group. Orchid research will only thrive if efforts to conserve tropical rainforest are put in place.”

“We are in the process of propagating the species in vitro in Panama for commercial purposes.” Dr Silvera added on his interview.

He added, “My father, Gaspar Silvera, is the owner of a small orchid company in Panama that specializes in propagating native orchid species but because Lophiaris silverarum grows slowly, taking about four years to reproduce in vitro, from seed to the first bloom, it will take many years before it is available to the public in Panama first, and then made commercially available outside of Panama.”