Orchidaceae, Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya, India

: A checklist of 237 species of orchids recorded from the state of Uttarakhand, India, is provided. Of these 127 are terrestrial, 99 epiphytic and 11 saprophytic. The present study shows that Poneorchis nana (King & Pantl.) Soo is a new record for Uttarakhand. Bulbophyllum secundum Hook. and Eulophia hormusjii Duthie that have earlier been merged into other species, during the present study after detailed scrutiny, have been treated as separate species . Androcorys pugioniformis (Lindl. ex Hook. f .) K.Y. Lang. has been rediscovered after a century gap. Nomenclature has been updated as far as possible with the help of available recent taxonomic literature.


Introduction
Orchids belong to family Orchidaceae and comprise an unique assembage of highly advanced monocotyledonous plants. These are characterized by distinct floral morphology, pollination mechanism, association with unique fungal partners (Mycorrhizae) and miniscule seeds. Orchidaceae includes about 788 genera (Mabberley 1997) and 24,500 species (Dressler 2006), and is the second largest family of flowering plants in the world. In India orchids are represented by 1,129 species and 184 genera, and show maximum diversity in the eastern Himalaya, including the North-Eastern region, Western Ghats, eastern Himalaya and eastern part of Western Himalaya (Kumaon Himalaya).
In Western Himalaya, John Firminger Duthie was the first botanist who compiled the Orchidaceae of the region based on his own collections and the collections made by the earlier explorers especially Strachey and Winterbottom. With the establishment of Northern Circle of the Botanical Survey of India at Dehradun in 1956, there have been vigorous plant collections and explorations in the north-western Himalaya and the upper Gangetic Plain. Later, Rau (1964); Rau and Bhattacharyya (1966); Nair (1966); Arora (1969a;1972;1978;1980;1985); Rau and Arora (1973); Arora and Malhotra (1979); Pant and Naithani (1981); Raizada et al. (1981); Bhattacharyya and Goel (1982); ; Seidenfaden and Arora (1982); Pangtey and Kalakoti (1983); Deva (1982); Hajra (1983a;b and 1984); Hajra and Kothari (1983); Malhotra and Singh (1983); Rawat and Pangtey (1983;1985a;; Vij et al. (1983); Malhotra and Balodi (1984a;1985), Pangtey et al. (1984). Deva and Naithani (1986) revised Duthie's Orchids of North-Western Himalaya based on latest collections and provided an illustrated account of 239 orchid species from the region. Pangtey et al. (1991) have given the detailed account of orchids from Kumaon Himalaya and described a total of 61 genera and 192 species. Murti et al. (2000) have enumerated the flowering plants including orchids in Kumaon. Singh (2001) enumerated the orchids of Gori valley, Kumaon Himalaya. As no taxonomic update of orchids was available for the state of Uttarakhand, an orchid survey was undertaken by the Wildlife Institute of India. The present work is a part of a study undertaken by Jalal (2005) on the detailed taxonomic account and ecology of orchids of the state of Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand) Jalal (2005) has described a total of 71 genera and 236 species of orchids, the checklist of which has been provided in the present work according to their classification.

Study site
The state of Uttarakhand lies in the eastern most part of the Western Himalaya within the vast eastwest expanse of the Himalayan range. Situated between 28°53'24" -31°27'50" N latitudes and 77°34'27" -81°02'22" E longitudes, it occupies an area of 53,483 km², which accounts for about 1.62 % of the total area of the country (Figure 1). The region is predominantly mountainous with expceptions in the South where plains areas occur along the foothills. The altitude ranges from 300 m to 7,817 m (Nanda Devi peak). The climate of Uttarakhand varies from subtropical to alpine. It is relatively cool and humid compared to rest of the Western Himalaya. Except inner dry ranges, much of the state receives high precipitation during monsoon and heavy snow during winter at higher altitudes (> 2,000 m). Champion and Seth (1968) categories of forest vegetation in the state are Moist Alpine Scrub, Sub-alpine Forests, Himalayan Dry Temperate Forests, Himalayan Moist Temperate Forests, Sub-Tropical Pine Forests, Swamp Forests, and Tropical Deciduous Forests. The state has approximately one third of its area under alpine region, which is very rich in herbaceous species including several terrestrial orchids. This diversity of vegetation types harbors growth of ecologically diverse orchid species in the state.

Data collection
Extensive surveys were conducted in various ecoclimatic zones of Uttarakhand between years of 2002 and 2006. For each species encountered, field notes were taken along with the voucher specimen following standard technique (Jain and Rau 1977). During field survey, field notes, date, locality, habitat and brief identification features were noted. Herbariums and libraries within India at Department of Botany, Kumaon University, Nainital (DSB); Forest Research Institute, Dehradun (DD); Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun (WII), and Botanical Survey of India, Dehradun (BSD), were consulted for identification. Accepted names are provided in italicized, boldfaced and basionyms in italicized font. The list is arranged according to the classification given by Dressler (1993). Citation of authors names follows Brummitt and Powell (1992). Habit for each species has been provided after the author citation. Collector numbers are provided for each species. The voucher specimens in the form of herbarium sheets and photographs have been deposited at WII.

Results and discussion
A checklist of 237 species of orchids are recorded from the state of Uttarakhand. Of these 127 are terrestrial, 99 epiphytic and 11 saprophytic. The present study also shows that Ponerorchis nana (King and Pantling) Soo is a new record for Uttarakhand (Jalal et al. 2008) and Bulbophyllum secundum Hook. (Jalal et al. 2006a) and Eulophia hormusjii Duthie (Jalal et al. 2006b) have earlier been mistakenly merged into other species and in present study, after detailed scrutiny, found to be different from other. Further Androcorys pugioniformis (Lindl. ex Hook. f.) K.Y. Lang has been rediscovered after a century gap. It has been observed that many species have not been recollected till date after their first report or some taxa have been reported earlier from a cultivated source only, some are reported but their occurrence in Uttarakhand seems very doubtful and three species have been included without any voucher specimens available for study suggesting that they have been reported in error (Jalal et al. 2007). Some species like Spiranthes spiralis, Luisia brachystachys, Oberonia iridifolia, and Cymbidium bicolor are of doubtful occurrence as no voucher specimen could be traced and they have not been collected during the present work. Dendrobium aphyllum and Arundina graminifolia were earlier reported from gardens. Species like Anoectochilus roxburghii, Vanda alpina, and Habenaria longifolia have been added on the authority of Duthie (1906). Coelogyne flaccida has been added on the authority of Das and Jain (1980).