Pollination Strategies of Orchidaceae With Special Reference to India: A Review

Abstract

Aesthetically, economically and ecologically significant flowering plant group orchids use several types of pollination strategy for reproductive success. Specially cross-pollinated orchids lure huge number of diverse pollinators by utilizing unique and spectacular deceptive pollination mechanism alongside rewarding mechanism. 1350 reported Indian species distributed across the whole continent and found mainly in the Eastern Himalayas and North Eastern, North West Himalayas, Peninsular India, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There are plethora of India based researches on geographical distribution, conservation and diversity, morphology and taxonomy, cultivation and artificial propagation and also economical uses of orchids. But there is significantly lesser amount of reports present especially in Indian perspective about orchid pollination studies. Here we discuss about orchids and their pollinators along with different pollination mechanisms by assembling several available scientific data, photographs, analyses, comparisons, facts etc. reported till to date. Discussions in this review represent a quality overview on current state of orchid pollination specially mentioning about Indian orchid species, their distribution and their pollinators. This study may be useful and beneficial for the future researchers who are willing to work on orchid pollination biology with a special emphasis on India.