Which is the ugliest orchid in the world?

Gastrodia agnicellus, one of 156 plants and fungal species named by Kew scientists and their partners around the world in 2020, has been crowned “the ugliest orchid in the world”.

Agnicellus means “little lamb” or “lambkin”. The name “refers to the woolly covering on the rhizome, the ear-like petals and also alludes to the name of the botanical artist who brought the new species to life in her drawing.”  For her work on this species the illustrator, Deborah Lambkin, won the 2020 Margaret Flockton Award, an annual award “for excellence in scientific botanical illustration” made by the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.

Botanist Wessel Swanepoel could not place the shrub in any known genus and neither could anyone else, and so Swanepoel called Kew’s molecular expert Felix Forest and his team for analysis.

The result was that it was not just a new species, but a new genus and a new family, called Tiganophyton karasense.

While around 2,000 plants are named new to science annually, new families are only published around once a year.

The shrub has bizarre scaly leaves and grows in extremely hot natural salt pans, hence its name Tiganophyton, derived from the Latin ‘Tigani’, or ‘frying pan’, and ‘Phyton’, or ‘plant’.

Martin Cheek, senior research leader at Kew, welcomed the latest natural discoveries.

 

Picture Credit : Google