At least 27 orchid species in Meru Betiri National Park

            At least 27 species of orchids live and grow at the Meru Betiri National Park (TNMB) in East Java Province. The national park`s staff had conducted an inventory on orchid species existing at the park and it found 27 species of orchids there, Heri Subagiadi, TNMB head, said here on Monday. "The 27 species of orchids grew well on a number of trees at the TNMB area," he said. Among the orchid species are Cleisostoma subulatum Bi, Corymborkis veratifolia Bi, Cymbidium sp, Dendribium crumenatum, and Flickingeria.

The inventory was conducted in the park`s sections of Banealit (Jember) and Sarongan (Banyuwangi). "We plan to conduct an inventory of orchid species in the whole area of the 58,000-hectare national park with the cooperation of another institution," he said.Indonesia has more than 4,000 species of orchid, which are native to almost every part of the archipelago. Kalimantan (Borneo) is the richest island in numbers of species of orchids in the world, Sumatra has 986 species, Java more than 971, 123 found in Maluku at the eastern part of Indonesia and the Province of Papua has more than 1000, mainly Dendrobium and Bulbophyllum.