![]() ![]() Also, similar orchids in the area had shed flowers and already had seed pots, giving a clear sign that their flowering season was reaching its end. But in this instance, the orchid did not have any leaves and the only identifier was the flower itself. The characteristics of a flower are critical for plant identification, so there are instances in which botanists must wait years or even decades until a tree begins to flower in order to make an accurate scientific identification. The new leafless orchid is named Gastrodia pushparaga due to its coloration and the locality. To verify, in March 2021, he sent a photograph of the flower to Bhathiya Gopallawa, a PhD candidate at the University of Peradeniya ( UOP) who worked at the National Herbarium. Perera recalled a somewhat similar wildflower belonging to the ginger family, but he thought this was a different bloom. The flower was yellow with a red tint what was unusual about the plant was that it had no leaves. Amila Perera, the project’s coordinator from Dilmah Conservation, was undertaking a survey on plants for this project when he made a chance observance of an unusual flower in the Walankanda forest floor. Walankanda and Viharakanda are two fragmented forest areas, and an ongoing project aims to connect these two forest areas through a land corridor. Tea plantations being the main prompt for forest fragmentation in the area, an ambitious project aims to create an ecological land corridor through neglected tea estates, linking the forest where the orchid was first found with another fragmented forest patch.ĬOLOMBO - The Sinharaja Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site is a large complex of lowland wilderness that is largely fragmented due to human activity.The plant grows in Walankanda, a forest frontier in the island’s intermediate zone with unique characteristics that will likely make these plants susceptible to future climate change impacts earlier than other wet zone rainforest plants.gunatillekeorum, described in 2020, 114 years later. ![]() This is the third Gastrodia species found in Sri Lanka, after the 1906 identification of G.A new leafless ground orchid found in a lowland wet zone forest in Sri Lanka has been named after a precious yellow sapphire as Gastrodia pushparaga, a gemstone commonly extracted from the same district. ![]()
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