In 2011, Destario Metusala saw a photograph of an orchid collected in western Kalimantan. The plant belonged to a private collection and was labelled Phalaenopsis gigantea “yellow”. It looked familiar, but not quite. The flowers were smaller, the perianth segments narrower, and the whole thing gave off that irritating feeling familiar to anyone who has…
Tag: Borneo
10 Orchids. Phalaenopsis gigantea
The beginning — Jaheri Not every story of a newly discovered species begins with a revelation. Sometimes it begins with someone looking at an extraordinary plant and reaching the perfectly reasonable conclusion that it is something already familiar. That was what happened in 1897, when Jaheri, a plant collector working for the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens,…