Gastrochilus dasypogon

Here is a link to one of my new articles which covers two aspects.

Amerasinghe, K., N. Weerasinghe, M. Abeysinghe, C. Bandara, K.P. Wojtas & P. Kumar. 2023. Gastrochilus flabelliformis (Blatt. & McCann) C.J.Saldanha (Epidendroideae: Vandeae: Aeridinae), an addition to the orchid flora of Sri Lanka, with taxonomic notes on Gastrochilus dasypogon (Sm.) Kuntze. Feddes Repertorium 134 (2): online first; Link

As the file is big, it wont go to the group on email.

Firstly, a species that was first seen 20 years back and remained unidentified. In 2017 some images of the fresh plant were sent to me from Sri Lanka by Dr. Kumudu Amerasinghe, and I requested my dear friend Dr. Champika Bandara to have a look at the plant, dissect and photograph if possible. With the help of another dear friend, Dr. Philip Wojtas, we confirmed the identity of this plant as Gastrochilus flabelliformis, a new and authentic record of this entity from Sri Lanka, that was earlier considered endemic to South India. Sri Lankan friends were also able to propagate this plant through in-vitro seed culture for conservation purposes.

Second part is like a game called “Chinese Whispers” or “Telephone”, where a word or sentence is communicated from one person to another, and the meaning of original word or sentence is lost. In our case a very detailed painting existed based on which a species was named, Saccolabium dasypogon 190 years ago in 1833 (later transferred to genus Gastrochilus in 1891 as Gastrochilus dasypogon). Copies were made of this painting, however, each copy differed from the original. This caused problems in the identification of this species later on, depending on who accessed which copy of this painting. In this manuscript we rectify this issue by invalidating the copies of the original painting and also show to the world how variable this entity is.

Pankaj

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