{"id":248762,"date":"2023-06-20T19:52:59","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T14:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=248762"},"modified":"2023-06-20T19:52:59","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T14:22:59","slug":"the-disappearing-wild-orchids-of-north-bengal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-disappearing-wild-orchids-of-north-bengal\/","title":{"rendered":"The disappearing wild orchids of North Bengal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article<\/span><b> \u201cThe disappearing wild orchids of North Bengal\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published in <\/span><b>Down To Earth <\/b>on <b>18th June 2023<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">E<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">piphytic orchids found in the Dooars and Darjeeling hills are dying out because of deforestation in their natural habitat.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What are Orchids?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orchids<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are plants that belong to the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">family<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orchidaceae<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a diverse and widespread group of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">flowering plants<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orchids are natural gauges of air quality because they don\u2019t grow in polluted air. They draw pollinators like bees and other insects to their nectar and thereby help cross-pollination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orchids are broadly categorized into three life forms: <\/span><b>1) epiphytic <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(plants growing on another plants including those growing on rock boulders and often termed lithophyte) These are not parasitic <\/span><b>2) Terrestrial<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (plants growing on land and climbers) and <\/span><b>3) mycoheterotrophic<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (plants which derive nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that are attached to the roots of a vascular plant).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Orchids in India<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the Botanical Survey of India\u2019s <\/span><b><i>Orchids of India: A Pictorial Guide<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has over 1200 species of Orchids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are 388 species of orchids, which are endemic to India of which about one-third\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(128) endemic species are found in the Western Ghats.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">757 (60%) of all orchids found in India are epiphytic, 447 are terrestrial and 43 are mycoheterotrophic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Himalayas, North-East parts of India and Western Ghats are the hot-spots of orchids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The highest number of orchid species is recorded from Arunachal Pradesh followed by Sikkim and West Bengal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Protection status:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The entire orchid family is listed under appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and hence any trade of wild orchid is banned globally.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cThe disappearing wild orchids of North Bengal\u201d published in Down To Earth on 18th June 2023 What is the News? Epiphytic orchids found in the Dooars and Darjeeling hills are dying out because of deforestation in their natural habitat. What are Orchids? Orchids are plants that belong&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-disappearing-wild-orchids-of-north-bengal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The disappearing wild orchids of North Bengal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,4182,9],"tags":[10504,10514],"class_list":["post-248762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-environment","category-public","tag-down-to-earth","tag-dte","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}