{"id":56879,"date":"2025-07-26T15:22:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=56879"},"modified":"2025-07-26T15:33:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:03:25","slug":"chamaegastrodia-reiekensis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/chamaegastrodia-reiekensis\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamaegastrodia reiekensis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Chamaegastrodia reiekensis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists from Mizoram University and Manipur University recently discovered a new and extremely rare orchid species \u2014 Chamaegastrodia reiekensis \u2014 in the forests of Northeast India.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Chamaegastrodia reiekensis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a new species of <\/span><b>orchid<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is named after its type locality, <\/span><b>Reiek<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a scenic <\/span><b>mountain destination in Mizoram <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">known for its rich biodiversity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Belonging to the elusive genus Chamaegastrodia, this orchid is <\/span><b>holomycotrophic<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014<\/span><b>entirely lacking chlorophyll and leaves<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014and <\/span><b>derives its nutrients exclusively from underground fungi.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Incapable of photosynthesis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it relies wholly on <\/span><b>symbiotic fungal associations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for survival.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With this addition, the global count of <\/span><b>Chamaegastrodia species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> rises to eight.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These mysterious orchids are sparsely<\/span><b> distributed across<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> parts of the <\/span><b>Eastern Himalayas, South-Central China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, and Thailand.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notably, all <\/span><b>Indian representatives of this genus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have been recorded exclusively in <\/span><b>Northeast India.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">C. reiekensis was found in moist, humus-rich soil near bamboo clumps at an elevation of 1,500 metres.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reiek forest \u2014 where the orchid was located \u2014 features a multi-layered canopy with tall emergent trees and dense understorey vegetation, offering niches for numerous unique plant species.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With temperatures ranging between 20\u201328\u00b0C and annual rainfall between 200\u2013250 cm, the forest supports tropical vegetation year-round.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Flowering occurs from August to September, and fruiting from September to October.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been <\/span><b>provisionally listed as Critically Endangered (CR) under IUCN criteria.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its<\/span><b> small size and camouflaged coloration<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> make it extremely difficult to detect on the forest floor. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\">The plant<b style=\"font-size: inherit;\"> emerges only briefly during its flowering and fruiting periods<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 posing a major challenge for researchers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/eastmojo.com\/free-digest\/2025\/07\/25\/rare-orchid-sans-leaves-chlorophyll-discovered-in-mizorams-reiek-hills\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EM<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chamaegastrodia reiekensis is a new species of orchid named after its type locality, Reiek, a scenic mountain destination in Mizoram. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":56863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1825,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-56879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-chamaegastrodia-reiekensis","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}