The Orchid Flora of Taiwan: A Collection of Line Drawings

Book excerpt: The history of written records of native orchids in Taiwan began in 1857 with a British botanist. After more than 160 years of study by European, Japanese, and Taiwanese scholars and enthusiasts, the list of native orchids increased to more than 470 species, including natural hybrids and varieties. The author exerted extensive e orts to include all known species in this work and arranged them based on the order of subfamilies. Scientific names, synonyms, and relevant references are provided for each species. Many of the species are provided with additional explanations in the “note” section. The uniqueness of this book is the line drawing illustrations which emphasize the structure of the column. In total, 500 figures are presented to accompany the species descriptions. These extensive line drawings were accumulated since 1971 and were mostly drawn by the author. More than that, this book also presents the gynostemium structure of more than 380 species, including the stigma, pollinium, rostellum, and column, in high-resolution color plates.