Orchids of Mount Kinabalu

Description:

This two-volume work provides a detailed account of the orchid flora of Mount Kinabalu situated in the Malaysian state of Sabah (formerly British North Borneo) which, at 4095 m, is the highest peak between the Himalayas and Papua (Indonesian New Guinea). Kinabalu was declared Malaysia’s first World Heritage Site by UNESCO in November 2000. The Kinabalu massif, encompassing only about 1250 square km, is smaller than most English counties, yet the authors list an astonishing number of orchids for such a small area. Nearly 38% of the orchid species are known from just one locality and about 16% have been collected only once. The Kinabalu vascular plant flora may include as many as 5000–6000 species, and is one of the most diverse, if not the most diverse floras in the world. Additionally, Mount Kinabalu has been a centre of extremely active plant evolution and speciation and presents a spectacular natural laboratory for studying these processes. Bearing in mind that much of the mountain, especially the remote and inaccessible northern side, is still poorly explored, one can get some idea of its biological richness.