By Christina Koh
Monday December 1, 2008
IPOH: The rare flowering of a mountain “leafless orchid” has sparked excitement among a group of friends who spotted it in the Cameron Highlands jungle of Gunung Jasar, Tanah Rata.
Local environmentalist and orchid enthusiast Embi Abdullah, 60, said it had been five years since he had seen the Aphyllorchis montana orchid blooming in the area.
Commonly known as the “leafless orchid”, the plant only reveals itself when it flowers, producing a 1.2m tall stem of butter-yellow orchids with brown specks, he said.
“It is very difficult to find them because this mountain species usually flowers once every two or three years,” said Embi.
Precious petals: A close-up of the Aphyllorchis montana orchid in the Gunung Jasar jungle, Tanah Rata.
“Even then it needs the right climatic conditions, like plenty of rainfall, before the orchid will flower.”
Embi said that since the first sighting of the plant in 2003, he and fellow nature lovers N. Madi and Khairulanwar Husain had been looking out for it in Gunung Jasar.
He added that the leafless orchid happened to be near the same spot where they had sighted another rare flower, an unusually reddish Amorphophallus bufo, in May.
The group of friends are trying to get the authorities’ help to protect the jungle site so that it would not be developed in the future.
“The Aphyllorchis montana has beautiful flowers. Although it is called the leafless orchid, in truth it has leaves so tiny that people often mistake them for something else,” he enthused.
The orchid, he added, was found only in Asian highland areas and fed on decaying organic matter. Its roots only go down some 15cm deep. --- The Star News
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