Flora of China, Volume 25: Orchidaceae

This volume entirely comprises the orchid family, or Orchidaceae, with 1,388 species in China, of which 494 are endemic, i.e., found nowhere else on Earth. The orchids of China include wild relatives of the source of the economically important vanilla pod, as well as the well-known cultivated genera Cymbidium and the slipper orchids, Cypripedium and Paphiopedilum. China has hundreds of other horticulturally important orchid species in genera such as Bletilla, Bulbophyllum, Calanthe, Coelogyne, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis, Pleione, and Vanda. This volume is the only fully comprehensive and up to date, English-language account of the wild orchids of China.

The Chinese flora, with an estimated 31,000 species, is of immense scientific and horticultural importance. Noteworthy, too, is Chinese traditional medicine, which is based on the remarkable plant resources of the country. Descriptions and identification keys for this diverse flora, until now unavailable in English, have been published over the past 16 years in the Flora of China, in conjunction with a separate series, the Flora of China Illustrations. Thirty-two of the total of 48 text and illustration volumes have already been published, thanks to an unprecedented and long-standing collaboration between Western and Chinese scientists.