Bull. Natl. Mus. Nat. Sci., Ser. B, 46(3), pp. 107–110, August 21, 2020

Dendrobium calicopis (Orchidaceae), a New Record for Myanmar
Myo Min Latt1, 2, Byung Bae Park1 and Nobuyuki Tanaka3, *1

Department of Environment and Forest Resources, College of Agriculture and Life Science,Chungnam National University, Republic of Korea
2
Department of Environmental Economic, Policy and Management,
University of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Yezin, Myanmar
3
Department of Botany, National Museum of Nature and Science,
4–1–1 Amakubo, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–0005, Japan*E-mail: nobuyuki_tanaka@kahaku.go.jp(Received 28 April 2020; accepted 24 June 2020)

Abstract Dendrobium calicopis Ridl. (Orchidaceae) is recorded in Myanmar for the ﬁrst time.
This species was discovered on branches of trees along stony and mossy riparian forest, the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve, peninsular Myanmar. A description, its locality information in the country
and photographic data are provided.
Key words : Burma, epiphyte, section Pedilonum, Tanintharyi, Tenasserim.

Introduction
Dendrobium Sw. is distributed widely throughout tropical and warm temperate Asia to Polynesia, and about 1500 species have been recognized(Mabberley, 2017). It is not only one of the threelargest orchid genera but also one of the mostimportant genera in commercial horticulture(Gogoi et al., 2014).
Myanmar is one of the richest locations for
Dendrobium, and Kress et al. (2003) reported
120 species of Dendrobium in the checklist.
Kurzweil and Lwin (2014) published a preliminary checklist of Orchidaceae of Myanmar, inwhich 121 species were listed. Since then three
new species of the genus were described from
Myanmar; D. hkinhumense Ormerod & Kumar,
D. koyamae Nob.Tanaka, T.Yukawa & J.Murata
and D. naungmungense Q.Liu & X.H.Jin(Ormerod and Kumar, 2008; Tanaka et al., 2010;Liu et al., 2018). Recently Aung et al. (2020)
published the annotated checklist of the genus in© 2020 National Museum of Nature and Science

which 144 species of Dendrobium were recorded.
During the biodiversity survey in Tanintharyi
Nature Reserve, southern Myanmar, we collected
Dendrobium specimens that belong to section
Pedilonum Blume but does not match to either ofthe 144 species recorded in Myanmar. Given thecharacteristic morphology of ﬂower with a longnarrow mentum, and lip with a narrow claw, it
was identiﬁed as Dendrobium calicopis Ridl., aspecies known from the Malay Peninsula. Our
morphological investigations using a dried specimen and a living specimen cultivated at theOrchid House of Tanintharyi Nature Reserve
showed that it morphologically matched the original protologue by Ridley (1903) even it waspoor and the drawing in ﬁg. 112 by Seidenfaden(1985) and ﬁg. 163 by Seidenfaden et al. (1992).
Dendrobium calicopis was described from Langkawi Island, near the border between Malaysia
and Thailand, and thus far recorded in Khao Yai
and Prachinburi etc., from which the population
in Myanmar is less than 400 km away (Fig. 1). A
voucher specimen is deposited in the herbariumof the Forest Research Institute, Myanmar.

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Myo Min Latt et al.

Fig. 1. Location of Dendrobium calicopis inMyanmar. Solid circle indicates a newly
recorded population in Myanmar, and open circles indicate known populations in Malaysia
and Thailand based on Seidenfaden (1985).

(RAF).
Taxonomic Treatment
Dendrobium calicopis Ridl. in J. Straits BranchRoy. Asiat. Soc. 39: 72 (1903); Holttum, Rev. Fl.
Malaya 1: 313 (1957); Seidenfaden in Opera Bot.
83: 164 (1985); Seidenfaden and Wood, OrchidsPenins. Malaysia Singapore: 373 (1992). —Fig. 2.
Anisopetala calicopis (Ridl.) M.A.Clem. inTelopea 10: 283 (2003).
Pedilonum calicopis (Ridl.) Rauschert in Feddes Repert. 94: 458 (1983).
Epiphyte. Stem pendulous, slender, stout,
ﬂeshy, dark purple, covered with white dry
sheath, up to 45 cm, 0.5 cm in diameter; leaf
blade elliptic, green, thin, 10–11×3.5–4 cm,apex acuminate, sometime purple striped or spotted on topmost one. Inﬂorescence raceme on

leaﬂess stem, 1.5 cm long, 2–4 ﬂowers; peduncle
dark purple; bracts transparentc, white. Flowers
purple-white, 4 cm across; pedicel purple,
1–1.5 cm long; bracteole triangular, purple atbase, tip white, acuminate, 2×2 mm; dorsal
sepal lanceolate, purple-white with purple margin and tip, 22×8 mm, with purple veins, lower
side purple, apex acute; lateral sepal linearovate, white with purple tip and margin, apex
acute, 23×8 mm, lower side purple spotted;
petal broadly elliptic, white with purple tip,
25×12 mm, obtuse, base tapering, margin erose;
lip stout, oblong, white with purple tip, with 4
raised veins, margin erose; spur 1 cm long, purple, beaked, stout; column dark purple; stigma
white, pollinia 2, yellow; anther cap purple withwhite line in the middle. Ovary purple, striped,
1 cm long.
Specimen examined: —MYANMAR. Tanintharyi Region. Kalon-htar Local Operation Unit,Tanintharyi Nature Reserve, Yephyu Township,Dawei District, 230 m elev., 14°19′52.6″N,98°15′10.3″E, 19 August 2015, Myo Min Latt001 (RAF).
Habitat: —Dendrobium calicopis grows on
the branches of trees along the stream in theriparian forest ecosystem. It mostly grows on thebranches projecting over the stream side andmoss is common associate plant along thebranches of trees. The plant prefers humid placesin sparsely light. (Fig. 2A).
Phenology: —Flowering in July to August inrainy season.
Distribution: —Malaysia, Myanmar (newrecord) and Thailand.
Note: —Many populations were commonly
found along the streams, especially southern partof the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve. The species islikely to be common around there, and further
surveys in this region may discover more populations. This discovery so far represents the western edge of the species distribution (Fig. 1).
IUCN Conservation Status: —The extent of
the populations remains unknown, but the protected area is large (ca. 1700 km2), and deforestation or forest fragmentation were not seen insideNew record of Dendrobium from Myanmar109

Fig. 2. Dendrobium calicopis. A. Habitat of Dendrobium calicopis associating with bryophytes on tree branches
in the riparian forest, Tanintharyi Nature Reserve, Tanintharyi Region. B. Front view of ﬂower.

the area during the survey. Dendrobium calicopis
is assessed as Least Concern (LC) (IUCN, 2012).
This species is listed in CITES appendix II.
Acknowledgments
This study was carried out by the biodiversity
conservation program of Tanintharyi NatureReserve Project which is the ﬁrst collaborative
project between Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (presently Ministry ofNatural Resources and Environmental Conservation), Union of Myanmar and PETRONAS Com-pany together with Total E & P Myanmar since2004. The authors are grateful to Forest Department of Myanmar for permitting and supporting
our botanical surveys in the protected areas. We
sincerely thank to TNRP staﬀ; Aung Myat Tun,
Aung Soe Than, Bo Bo Soe who assisted in ﬁeldwork. Thanks are also due to Saroj Ruchisansakun and Hubert Kurzweil for useful comments
and sharing knowledge.
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