The Andaman Islands are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about 130 km (81 mi) southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east. Most of the islands are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India, while the Coco Islands and Preparis Island are part of the Yangon Region of Myanmar.
Eulophia andamanensis is an orchid found to occur among the Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands (off the east coast of India and also in the north-western tip of Langkawi island in Malaysia.The occurrence of this ground orchid in Andaman Islands is restricted to some isolated pockets of certain islands and rare. Living collections of this taxon from the Andaman Islands is under ex situ conservation outside the islands at the Field Gene Bank of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Trivandrum, India. It is a pre-tsunami accession.
The Nicobar long-tailed macaque is a subspecies of the crab-eating macaque, endemic to the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. This primate is found on three of the Nicobar Islands—Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar and Katchal—in biome regions consisting of tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests.
The Kangaroo Island emu or dwarf emu is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was restricted to Kangaroo Island, South Australia, which was known as Ile Decrés by the members of the Baudin expedition. It differed from the mainland emu mainly in its smaller size. The species became extinct by about 1827.
Robert Wight MD FRS FLS was a Scottish surgeon in the East India Company, whose professional career was spent entirely in southern India, where his greatest achievements were in botany – as an economic botanist and leading taxonomist in south India. He contributed to the introduction of American cotton. As a taxonomist he described 110 new genera and 1267 new species of flowering plants. He employed Indian botanical artists to illustrate many plants collected by himself and Indian collectors he trained. Some of these illustrations were published by William Hooker in Britain, but from 1838 he published a series of illustrated works in Madras including the uncoloured, six-volume Icones Plantarum Indiae Orientalis (1838–53) and two hand-coloured, two-volume works, the Illustrations of Indian Botany (1838–50) and Spicilegium Neilgherrense (1845–51). By the time he retired from India in 1853 he had published 2464 illustrations of Indian plants. The standard author abbreviation Wight is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
"Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute", renamed in the fond memory of visionary Prime Minister of India Shri Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is an autonomous Institute established by the Government of Kerala on 17 November 1979 at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It functions under the umbrella of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), Government of Kerala. The Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew played an exemplary and significant role in shaping and designing the lay out of the JNTBGRI garden in its formative stages.
Bentinckia nicobarica is a species of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae found to occur in the Nicobar group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. It is an endemic palm occurring in Great Nicobar, Katchal, Nancowry and Car Nicobar Islands.
Phoenix andamanensis is a wild relative of date palm endemic to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal southwest of Myanmar. It is rather a newly described taxon by Sasha C. Barrow in 1998 based on old herbarium collections. This taxon was known only from a few herbarium collections and a few insignificant citations by Kurz in 1870, Brandis in 1906 and Parkinson in 1923. The Herbarium collections were made mostly during the British regime in 1903, 1904 and 1911 by Rogers and Osmaton. Later, Ellis from the Botanical Survey of India in 1990 collected one specimen from the Saddle Peak. The specimens were remained unidentified at herbaria until its circumscription as new taxon by Barrow in 1998.
Paul Hamilton Allen (1911–1963) was an American botanist noted for his work on the ecology of Central America, orchid systematics and economically important species including bananas. He was married to the former Dorothy Osdieck of Kirkwood, Missouri.
Phalaenopsis tetraspis is a species of epiphytic orchid endemic to the Andaman Islands, the Nicobar Islands and northwestern Sumatra. It was originally erroneously published as a Himalayan species by Reichenbach, which was corrected by James Veitch 23 years after Heinrich Gustav Reichenbachs publication. Mature specimens may have up to nine leaves, but usually plants have 4–5, elliptic-obovate, acute to obtuse, 20 cm long and 8 cm wide leaves. Showy, fleshy, fragrant flowers are produced on axillary, arching to subpendent racemes or panicles. A prominent feature of this species is the midlobe of the labellum, which is oblong, obtuse-subacute, and the apex is covered in dense trichomes. The karyotype is asymmetric and nonuniform.
Pinanga andamanensis is one of the critically endangered species of endemic palms reported from the Andaman Islands.
Korthalsia rogersii is an endangered endemic rattan species, thought to be extinct from the insular habitat of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean until 1993. Korthalsia rogersii was first described by Odoardo Beccari in 1918 based on two herbarium field specimens collected by C. G. Rogers in 1904 from the South Andaman Island. This species was known only from these two collections until 1993. Sam Mathew and Pakshirajan Lakshminarasinhan were able to find the species again at Chidiyatapu forests of the South Andamans after a gap of about 100 years. Live collections are introduced at Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute, Trivandrum, South India.
Vanilla andamanica is an endangered wild relative of commercial vanilla, Vanilla planifolia, the source of vanilla essence. It grows in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India in the Bay of Bengal., and classified as a Vulnerable species (VU) by the IUCN Red List.
Cleisocentron is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It has a disjunct distribution, known from the Himalayas, Vietnam, China and Borneo.
Peristylus, sometimes commonly known as ogre orchids or bog orchids is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It consists of over 100 known species found across much of eastern and southern Asia as well as in Australia and on many islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Pteroceras is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It is native to China, the Indian Subcontinent, and Southeast Asia.
Hermenegild Santapau (1903-1970) was a Spanish born naturalized Indian Jesuit priest and botanist, known for his taxonomical research on Indian flora. He was credited with the Latin nomenclature of several Indian plant species. A recipient of the Order of Alphonsus X the Wise and the Birbal Sahni Medal, he was honoured by the Government of India in 1967, with the award of Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award for his contributions to the society.
Piper ribesioides, also known as Lao chili wood, mai sakhaan, sankhaan, sankharn, sankahn or sakahn is a species of black pepper plant. The woody vine or stem of the plant has a hot, peppery and chili flavour, with a lingering aftertaste and slightly numbing sensation to the tongue. It is commonly used in Lao cuisine both in Laos and the predominately Lao ethnic region of Northeastern Thailand. It is the most important ingredient in Laos' famous Or lam. Its berries are sometimes pressed for an oil that is also used in cooking.
Rotala andamanensis is a lesser-known endemic wetland plant species of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal belonging to the family Lythraceae. The type locality of this species is Wright Myo, the southern slope of the Mount Harriet Hill ranges. This is a rather rare species found to occur along the wetland area of the region. The specimens were originally collected by Balakrishnan of the Botanical Survey of India and described by Sam Mathew and Lakshminarashimhan of the same institution in 1992.
