Bulbophyllum of Sulawsesi
By Jaap Vermeulen and Peter O’Byrne – (2011)
247 pages, art paper with 170 colour photos + spine, front, back & inside covers; 13 maps and geographic illustrations; 3 tables; 108 line drawings.
Hard Cover. 26cm x 19cm
ISBN 978-983-812-137-8
Natural History Publications, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
What can I say? Natural History Publications Sabah have done it again – produced another fine book on wild orchids that is! In fact, not only is this a nice addition to NHP’s extensive catalogue but it is the first book ever published specifically on the orchids of Sulawesi and the Bulbophyllum could not make a better (except for the vandoid orchids of course) opening subject.
The unusual shaped island of Sulawesi consisting mainly of a central obscurely triangular shaped body and four radiating arm like peninsulas, is the fourth largest island in S.E. Asia with a land mass on par with Cambodia or Syria. It is situated in the middle of the Indonesian Archipelago (straddling the Wallace Line) with the Philippines and Sulu Archipelago to the north, Borneo to the west, Papua New Guinea to the east and Australia to the south. Formerly known as the Celebes, this amazing island still remains largely unexplored botanically and zoologically and there is still much to learn and be discovered about the flora and fauna of this unique island before its forests disappear! For those of us with an interest in the orchid flora, hopefully this book will just be the first instalment of what I am sure will prove to be an exciting voyage of discovery ahead.
One of the authors, Jaap Vermeulen is well known for his work with the genus Bulbophyllum and has written many papers and books on the subject from the African species to the Asian, Papua New Guinea and Australian. His work is well known and respected and this nice and very useful book makes another addition to help filling those gaps in the literature on this amazing and diverse genus.
The book itself is quite nicely laid out and easy to read and find and make ready use of its contents. It opens with an introduction on the islands geography and reasons for its high endemism of species leading into climate, forest types, parent soil material and biodiversity and the current status of Sulawesi’s forests, accompanied by some very nice forest and landscape photos. From there it proceeds with the biogeography of Sulawesi covering the ‘Wallace Line’ palaeotopography and geotectonics speculation supplemented by a magnificent double page photo of forest from ‘Gunung Boliohuto’ part of the Sulawesi northern peninsular.
It then continues into the ‘Sulawesi Bulbophyllum’ with some statistics on distribution within regions, endemism and sections and species numbers. Followed by the geographical division of Sulawesi into regions and a bit on regional endemism.
The main part of the book opens with the publishing details of the genus and type species along with the synonymous generic names, where published and their type species. The book is divided into infrageneric sections (groups) that are recognised within Bulbophyllum with 2 new sections established by the authors and 1 new infrageneric combination among the 24 sections they have encountered from Sulawesi. A key is provided for these sections. Each section has its author/s, type species and publishing details along with any synonymous names and their type species.
A very detailed description of each section is provided along with approximate number of species and the countries of distribution. A key to the species is provided only for those that occur on Sulawesi. Each species has its authorship and publishing details accompanied with any synonymous names and their publishing details and type location. A complete physical description of the species is given along with notes on habitat with altitudinal ranges and distribution details and any additional morphological notes. Most species also have both a botanical drawing of at least the plant habit if not lip and column structure along with a colour photograph. A few species however may only be illustrated by either a drawing or photo. All up 123 species and 4 subspecies are covered, 7 of these described as new in the book. An incredible 60 species of the 127 taxa contained within its pages have only recently been discovered and described as new to science, which is nearly half of the species in the book.
The book closes with a final chapter on ‘Orchid Habitats in Sulawesi’ illustrated by numerous colour photos of different habitats, forest and scenic landscape shots, explaining some of the different terrains and parent rock material in different regions on the island and some of the species that are found there and not just Bulbophyllum.
Many wonderful and colourful species are covered in this book, including the largest flowered of the genus B. echinolabium (capable of producing flowers 48cm tall) found only on Sulawesi. Some of the new discoveries are very interesting and quite attractive such as B. fraternum, B. condylochilum and B. entobaptum to name just a few. And these we can look upon as just the beginning as I am sure there will be more new Sulawesi discoveries to be made in this genus in the years ahead.
Basically this is a very good book, it is useful for research and quite interesting to read about the island and its various unexplored regions and habitats and of course, an invaluable reference for anyone interested in the Bulbophyllum or S. E. Asian and PNG orchids in general. It is a pity however, that not all species are accompanied by full page botanical illustrations as found in the excellent ‘Orchids of Borneo’ series also published by NHP.
As already mentioned above, some species are only partially illustrated, which is of course helpful, but complete full page drawings would have been better. I also noticed a mistake in the indexing listing the new species B. hyalosemoides (previously identified as B. microglossum Ridl.) for pages 105-7 when in fact it is found on pages 205-7. That tiny ‘typo’ aside, this is still a good book and definitely worth purchasing.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books