Orchid Taxonomy at KewOrchid Taxonomy at Kew  |
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| Grammatophyllum scriptum from John Lindley's herbarium | Epidendrum pseudepidendrum |
Kew's importance to orchid taxonomy can be said to have been initiated with the acquisition by Sir William Hooker of John Lindley's orchid herbarium in 1865. Lindley (1799-1865) was the first Professor of Botany at London University and the most active orchid taxonomist during the first half of the nineteenth century. His collection, containing some 7000 specimens of which over half are types, together with those of William and Joseph Hooker and George Bentham, form the basis of the present collection.
Robert Rolfe (1855-1921) was appointed the first curator of the Orchid Herbarium by Joseph Hooker in 1880. He pioneered the exchange of ideas between the orchid scientific and horticultural communities and was founder editor of the Orchid Review. His accounts for the Flora of Tropical Africa (1897-8) and Flora Capensis (1912) form an important contribution to orchid taxonomy and provided a sound frame work for future workers.
Victor Summerhayes (1897-1974) worked at Kew for forty years specialising in tropical African and European orchids. He produced accounts for the Flora of West Tropical Africa (1936) and Flora of Tropical East Africa (1968), but is perhaps best known for his popular Wild Orchids of Britain (1951). After his retirement in 1964 he was succeeded by his assistant Peter Hunt who is now the International Registrar of orchid hybrids at the Royal Horticultural Society. Peter Taylor was appointed curator in 1973 and, under his direction, orchid taxonomy was revitalised and its horticultural contacts strengthened. The staff today comprises Phillip Cribb, who took over as curator in 1983, Jeffrey Wood (deputy curator) and Sarah Thomas.
The orchid herbarium collections now number over 250,000 specimens including some 30,000 types, with an influx of about 1500 specimens per annum. The ancillary spirit col lection, founded by Summerhayes in 1930, is an invaluable source of reference containing over 60,000 specimens, half of which are orchids, now entered on a computer database. The library of orchid books, periodicals, papers and the collection of orchid illustrations is probably the most comprehensive in existence. The transparency collection contains several thousand slides which are used for lectur ing and publication purposes.
Floristic research is today concentrated on tropical Africa and Madagascar, South-East Asia and the Malay Archipelago, the South-West Pacific and Brazil. Recent floristic accounts include the Flora of Tropical East Africa (1989), the Flora of Ethiopia (in press), a revision of R E Holttum's Orchids of Malaya (1992) by Gunnar Seidenfaden and Jeffrey Wood, and the Orchids of the Solomon Islands and Bougainville (1991) and the Orchids of Vanuatu by Beverley Lewis and Phillip Cribb. Flora Zambesiaca Orchidaceae by Isobel la Croix and Phillip Cribb is in preparation. A comprehensive illustrated account of the orchids of Mt Kinabalu in Borneo by Jefrey Wood, Reed and John Beaman and a concise checklist of the orchids of Borneo by Jeffrey Wood and Phillip Cribb have recently been published. In addition, a colaborative project with specialists in Leiden and Malaysia entitled Orchids of Borneo is now underway. Descriptions and illustrations of one hundred species will appear in each issue; two volumes have now been published and a third is in press.
Monographs and revisions are currently concentrated on Old World genera of horticultural merit that are often threatened in the wild. Publications on Cymbidium, Dendrobium sections Latouria and Spatulata, Paphiopedilum and Pleione have already appeared and others on Acanthephippium, Cypripedium, Dendrobium section Pedilonum and Dendrochilum are in press.
Knowledgeable associates working part-time at Kew continue to make a valuable contribution. James Comber's Orchids of Java (1990) and Ian MacLeish, Nicholas Pearce and Bryan Adam's Orchids of Belize (1995) are excellent examples. A companion volume covering Sumatra is now in preparation. Henry Oakeley is currently working on a revision of Lycaste for the Kew Magazine Monograph series. Isobel la Croix is working on the Flora Zambesiaca Orchidaceae and Nicholas Pearce on Eurasian orchids.
The important role of anatomy in orchid taxonomy is demonstrated by the work of the Jodrell Laboratory staff in collaboration with the Herbarium. Dr Alec Pridgeon at Kew, together with Professor William Stern in Florida, are currently completing the Orchidaceae volume of Anatomy of the Monocotyledons. Dr Mark Chase heads Kew's molecular biology unit and, with Tony Cox, is applying the techniques to orchid classification. Alec Pridgeon is coordinating the Genera Orchidacearum project which is seeking to produce a new synthesis of traditional and modern analyses of the phylogenetic relationships of orchids.
Both the herbarium and library collections are constantly being enriched. Fieldwork today is concentrated on tropical South-East Asia, Madagascar, the South-West Pacific and Brazil. This is invaluable in the preparation of floras and monographs and to gain an understanding of orchids and their growing conditions in the wild.
A wide variety and considerable number of live and preserved specimens from numerous growers are submitted to the Herbarium for identification each year. Identifications from the Living Collections Department alone number several hundred in most years. Kew has continued and extended its important links in the horticultural world through its specialist identification service and articles by staff in journals such as The Orchid Review and Die Orchidee. Phillip Cribb has served on the Orchid Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society since 1980 and also represents Kew on the International Orchid Commission, the International Committee for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Orchid Specialist Group. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Handbook on Orchid Nomenclature and Registration, now in its third edition. Taxonomic advice is regularly provided to the International Registrar of orchid hybrids at the Royal Horticultural Society.
Kew participates in an international network of orchid specialists. The twice yearly Orchid Research Newsletter, edited by Phillip Cribb and Alec Pridgeon, continues to provide orchid researchers worldwide, both amateur and professional, with information, ideas and contacts. Such an exchange of knowledge on this fascinating group of plants is set to contine into the next century as it has done since the time of John Lindley.
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