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Thursday, December 3, 2009
Smallest orchid-world record set by Lou Jost
Cerro Candelaria Reserve, ECUADOR-- American scientist
Lou
Jost has discovered a cream-coloured orchid which
measures only 2.1mm across-which sets the new world record
for the Smallest orchid.
Photo: The world's Smallest
orchid measures only 2.1mm across and the petals
are so thin they are transparent / Photos Lou Jost
(enlarge
photo)
It is the 60th new orchid that Dr Jost
has discovered in the past decade. He works for Ecuador's
EcoMinga Foundation, which created the reserve in partnership
with the World Land Trust in Britain.
'It is an exciting feeling to find a new
species,' he said. 'People think everything has been discovered
but there's much more.'
The newly discovered orchid is from the
Platystele genus and the petals are so thin that they are
just one cell thick and transparent.
The previously unknown bloom is only
2.1mm across and takes over from the species Platystele jungermannioides
as the world’s smallest orchid flower. (enlarge
photo)
Dr
Lou Jost said of the orchid with the smallest flower:
“I found it among the roots of another plant that I had collected,
another small orchid which I took back to grow in my greenhouse
to get it to flower. “A few months later I saw that down among
the roots was a tiny little plant that I realised was more
interesting than the bigger orchid.
The tiny flower was unwittingly collected
from the Cerro Candelaria reserve in the eastern Andes
which was created by Ecuador’s EcoMinga Foundation in partnership
with the World Land Trust in Britain.
More than 1,000 orchid species have been unearthed
in the South American country in the last 100 years as new
roads have opened up more remote regions.
Dr Jost's most exciting find was a
group of 28 types of orchids from the teagueia genus in a
mountainous area near Banos, Ecuador. The group was previously
thought to only have six species.
A second tiny orchid thought to be another
type never seen before and collected in the Rio Anzu Reserve
in central Ecuador, is among his other discoveries: “It was
so small it looked like a piece of dirt at first. I was going
through the moss on a fallen tree branch – they’re very good
places for orchids to grow – when I spotted it. The flower
was 3mm across.”
Related world records:
Largest
maple leaf-world record set by Hailey Nickolson
Tallest
rose bush-world record set by Robert Bendel
Largest
pumpkin-world record set by Christy Harp
Heaviest
gooseberry-world record set by Bryan Nellist
Tallest
Cactus-world record set by SDM College of Dental Sciences
Largest
rutabaga-world record set by Scott Robb
Largest
cabbage-world record set by Steve Hubacek
Longest
Cucumber-world record set by Yitzhak Yazdanpana
Largest
organic cucumber-world record set by the Segee family
Largest
potato-world record set by Khalil Semhat
Largest
rutabaga-world record set by Norm Craven
Most
cobs on a maize plant-world record set by Mark Wozencroft
Longest
Spaghetti Bean-world record set by Toni Velardo
Longest
water spinach-world record set by Li Hui
Thursday,
December 3, 2009
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