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The
orchidenthusia.com represents a group of orchid
enthusiasts who focuses on the wild orchids of
Peninsular Malaysia (Malaya). We strongly feel
that insufficient attention is being channeled to
the wild orchids of Malaya and one of the ways to share
our interest is through this website as a mean of
introducing our native orchids through pictorial
approach and ongoing gathering and dissemination communications.
Even though about 45% of Peninsular Malaysia is
covered with forest (Forestry Department of
Peninsular Malaysia), orchid species numbers
recorded within this boundary are much lower compared
to our
neighbors, like Thailand, Sumatra, Java and Borneo
where their figures can easily hit more than 1000
species. In Malaya, we are still behind
with about only 800 species recorded. Impressive
though, it seems illogical to have this lower figure
despite being
surrounded by the heights of our neighbors. As what
had been expressed by Seidenfaden and Wood (1992),
systematic collecting activities during the last
30 to 40 years had been very minimal.
Appreciation of wild orchids of Malaya was guided
mainly by Holttum (1957), and later revised by Seidenfaden and
Wood (1992), with a compiled list of the wild orchids of
Malaya. However, there are still too many incidences
where we need to refer
to the Orchids of Sumatra, Java, Borneo and Thailand to
appreciate some of what we thought were ‘unknowns’,
just because our list is not complete and updated.
Too frequent our amateur wild orchid lovers stumble
over some real unknowns or new discovery but unable
to share it through a proper channel.
Here in orchidenthusia.com, we believe that
action speaks louder than words, and picture tells a
thousand words. We are constantly striving to get
new and better photograph shots of Malayan wild
orchids and share it in general. We also strongly
encourage our amateur and professional wild orchid
lovers to kindly supply their photograph collections
to be appreciated by us all, to keep the list going
and to promote communication between us, the wild
orchid lovers.
It is hoped that in the near future, more effort
will be put into systematic collection of wild
orchids of Malaya, especially by related
organization such as the Forestry Department of
Peninsular Malaysia, Forest Research Institute of
Malaysia (FRIM) and universities in Malaysia. |
