J. Jpn. Bot. 91(6): 358–361 (2016) Kenji SUETSUGU: New Locality of the Mycoheterotrophic Orchid Gastrodia fontinalis from Kuroshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, 1-1, Rokkodai, Nada-ku, Kobe, 657-8501, JAPAN E-mail:
[email protected] Summary: I found Gastrodia fontinalis T. P. Lin based on a collection from Mt. Pataoerh in Taipei (Orchidaceae) in bamboo forests on Kuroshima County, Taiwan (Lin 1987). This species was Island, the northernmost island of the Ryukyu previously considered as an endemic Taiwanese Islands in Japan. This habitat represents the species. Recently, Suetsugu et al. (2014) found northernmost locality of the species. the species in a bamboo forest on Takeshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. During The genus Gastrodia (Orchidaceae) is a the recent field survey on Kuroshima Island, I group of mycoheterotrophic orchids distributed found additional populations of G. fontinalis in temperate and tropical areas of Madagascar, in bamboo forests from the Island. This habitat Asia, and Oceania (Chung and Hsu 2006). The represents the northernmost locality of the genus, which contains approximately 80 species, species. Here I report the new locality with a is characterized by a fleshy tuber or coralloid description of the specimens from the Island. underground stem, an absence of leaves, the union of sepals and petals, and two mealy Gastrodia fontinalis T. P. Lin, Native pollinia without caudicles (Chen et al. 2009, Orchids of Taiwan 3: 129 (1987). [Fig. 1] Govaerts et al. 2016). Terrestrial, mycoheterotrophic herb. Root G a s t ro d i a shows extraordinary short, densely branching, mostly extending morphological diversity.