Pleione 11(2): 349 - 366. 2017. ISSN: 0973-9467 © East Himalayan Society for Spermatophyte Taxonomy doi:10.26679/Pleione.11.2.2017.349-366 A checklist of orchids in two protected forests in Kohima district of Nagaland, India Wenyitso Kapfo1 and Neizo Puro Department of Botany, Nagaland University, Lumami-798627, Nagaland, India. 1 Corresponding Author, e-mail:
[email protected] [Received 17.10.2017; Revised 21.11.2017; Accepted 19.12.2017; Published 31.12.2017] Abstract Two protected forests in Kohima District viz. Pulie Badze Wildlife Sanctuary and Jotsoma Community Forest are hosts to a rich diversity of orchids. This paper reports 66 species from 32 genera of Orchidaceae from these two Protected Areas. Key words: Kohima district, Pulie Badze Wildlife Sanctuary, Jotsoma Community Forest, Orchid diversity INTRODUCTION The word orchid evokes superlative terms associated with beauty, diversity and range of distribution. Being estimated at well over 25,000 species, belonging to ca 800 genera, (Chen et al 2009), Orchidaceae remains the largest family among families of flowering plants. India is host to 1378 species of orchids (Verma & Lavania 2014), of which, 860 species occur in its NE region (Chowdhery 2009). In the state of Nagaland, 396 species, belonging to 86 genera, have been described (Deb & Imchen 2008) even as more and more are being added to the local orchid flora by various authors (Chaturvedi et al. 2012; Jakha et al. 2014; Jakha et al. 2015; Deb et al. 2015; Deb et al. 2016; Rongsengsashi et al. 2016). This paper lists 66 species belonging to 32 genera of Orchidaceae occurring in the study area.