A new species of orchid with enormous, highly scented flowers has been discovered in Madagascar. It was discovered by Austrian botanist Anton Sieder, who passed on his findings to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, who confirmed the plant, named Cynorkis christae, as being new to science.
Another nine new orchids have been discovered in the same area in the past two years, including Cynorkis aconitiflora a delicate, violet flowered species with blooms similar to Aconitum and Cynorkis elephantina, notable for its speckled flowers and flower stems.
The new findings were researched by Johan Hermans, Honorary Research Associate at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Johan’s friend Anton Sieder from the Vienna University Botanic Garden alerted him to the discovery of Cynorkis christae in Northern Madagascar in January 2016. Anton emailed Johan some pictures of the orchid and as soon as Johan saw the image of the orchid in flower, he knew it was something that hadn’t been recorded to science before.
“It is quite a find,” said Johan, who saw the orchid in the flesh in January this year after travelling to the mountains with a team from Kew and Paris. “One of the most noticeable traits of this new orchid is its sweet scent, which one of our team likened to smelling like champagne,” he added.
Cynorkis christae also has enormous flowers, with a 5cm (2in) wide lip and a 16cm (6in) spur. Most of the flower is pure white, while the top petals have distinctive maroon markings.
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“It has puzzled me quite a lot as to why this orchid hasn’t been recorded before,” says Johan. “It is probably due to it growing in quite a remote area,” he adds. “It is quite an adventure to get there!”
A year after Anton’s email Johan and his team set out to see the orchid and it took them four days to travel to the site, on the western side of the Tsaratanana Mountains, from the Madagascan capital Antananarivo. The trip was in Johan’s words a ‘gamble’ because the plant only flowers for a month or so during the rainy season and flowering could easily have been missed.
Johan says there are a couple of hundred Cynorkis christae visible along the road where the orchid was discovered, growing on steep slopes and rock faces. “It has caused an immense amount of amusement to the people living in the area, with so many people taking such an interest in the plants,” says Johan. “It is like a group of people suddenly studying the daisies growing in your front lawn.”
Johan is hoping that a further trip to Madagascar later in the year will allow for collecting seed although it will be ripe in the wet season when the area may not be reachable. If it can be saved, seed of these orchids could be added to the Kew Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in East Sussex, which aims to prevent the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for the future.