Commercial Floriculture

Introduction

Introducion
• Orchidaceae is a large family of monocotyledons comprising about 800 genera and 25,000 species around the world.
• Orchids are accepted to be the world’s most exotic and fascinating flowers, with their extraordinary variety of form, sizes, shapes, colours, texture and markings.
• These features make them highly priced among the ornamentals.
• Majority of the cultivated orchids are natives of tropical counties.
• In India, they are mainly found in North eastern hills, Kerala and Western Ghats and few in Kashmir.
• They grow in the humid tropical forests.
• Orchid growing has become a great hobby all over the world in addition to its commercial value for cut flower industry.
• Cultivation of orchids has become a very profitable occupation.
• The secret of successful cultivation of orchids is to provide them with conditions as identical as possible with the environment under which they were growing in the wild.
• Due to their peculiar nutritional habits, Orchids require special techniques of cultivation, it they are to grow healthy and put out a good crop of flowers.

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Botany
• Orchidaceae is the largest family of angiosperms.
• The family contains more than 80,000 hybrids.
• Sub Kingdom : Phanerogams
• Division : Angiosperms
• Class : Monocotyledons
• Order : Orchidales
• Family : Orchidaceae (Bentham & Hooker)

Origin
• Tropical Forests of Amazon & Indo - Malayan region.

Distribution in India: India is blessed with a wealth of orchids flora and about 1300 species are estimated to occur in the country.
• North western Himalayas – 200 spp
• North eastern India - 800 spp
• Western Ghats - 200 spp
• Others - 100 spp

Importance Genera of Commercial Importance
• Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis (Moth Orchids), Aerides, Cattleya, Paphiopedilum, and Vanda etc,.

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