The rare blooming of the Tiger Orchid at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute at Palode, near Thiruvananthapuram, has triggered excitement among scientists and nature lovers.
Native to the jungles of Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea, the plant has big yellow flowers with deep brown markings on them, resembling a tiger’s coat.
It is also known as the Giant Orchid because the flowers become massive on attaining maturity.
“Though the Tiger Orchid has bloomed twice in the past on the campus, the flowers were not healthy and our efforts to multiply the plant failed,” said scientist C. Sathish Kumar of the institute's Orchid Biology and Conservation unit.
A plant that grows on other trees, the Tiger Orchid ( Grammatophyllum speciosum ) produces hundreds of flowers on separate shoots. Each flower is about 10 to 15 cm wide. The species is rarely cultivated commercially as it is usually too large to be accommodated in most greenhouses.
The long flowering interval — it lies dormant for more than a year before flowering again — is another deterrent for floriculturists.
