The Orchids of Arabia

Abstract

Summary. Eighteen orchid species have been collected so far in the Arabian Peninsula and nine of these are newly recorded. Three genera, Nervilia, Disa and Satyrium are also reported for the first time. The floristic affinities of the Arabian orchids are briefly discussed. No account dealing specifically with the orchids of Arabia has hitherto been produced. The orchid sections in each of most recent accounts of the Arabian flora by Blatter (9'19) and Schwartz (I939) are now quite inadequate. This became apparent when a number of herbarium specimens of orchids for identification were received at Kew and the British Museum (Natural History). These had been collected recently in the Yemen by J. R. I. Wood, A. Radcliffe-Smith, F. N. Hepper, D. C. Carden & family and others, and in the Oman by A. Radcliffe-Smith, D. Vesey-Fitzgerald and J. Mandaville; this study is the result. The Arabian peninsula bordered in the north by Iraq and Jordan consists mainly of an extremely arid plateau, at its highest in the west and sloping gently towards the east. This plateau is not only devoid of orchids but in large areas of sand and rocky desert almost lacks vegetation of any sort. However, in the peripheral mountains and particularly in the Yemen and in Dhofar (Oman) the rainfall is much higher and reliable and is even capable of supporting woodland as the vegetational climax (Scott, 1946; Hepper, 1977) and it is from here (with one or two exceptions) that the Arabian orchids have been recorded. These recent collections from the Yemen have more than doubled the number of orchid species recorded from Arabia. The reasons for this are twofold; firstly, orchids are rare in Arabia, most occurring in very small populations in only a few (often only single) localities, and, secondly, much of Arabia has only recently become accessible to botanists, this being particularly true of the Yemen and Dhofar which are the richest orchid areas.