Taxonomic notes on two endemic species of Oberonia Lindl. from Western Ghats, India

The genus Oberonia is known for its micro floral arrangement. Due to its minute structure, excess of new species are reported. The present paper reveals the synonymization of two recently described species of the genus Oberonia viz. O. saintberchmansii and O. wynadensis under O. anamalayana and O. josephi respectively. The original illustration and live dissected images of the species are provided for easy identification.


Introduction
Oberonia Lindl. is an old-world genus of mostly epiphytic herbs comprising 300 species (1).In India, 61 species have been reported in the genus (2), which is likely to be an overestimate; given the several new synonyms published in recent years (3).About 26 species have been recorded in the Western Ghats of India (4).The exploration of orchid study in the Southern Western Ghats resulted with the findings of two synonyms of newly described species of Oberonia.The present work is based on the examination of original protologue, type material and live collection from type locality.

Results and Discussion
Oberonia saintberchmansii was described from Idukki district, Kerala (5).The species was compared with only Oberonia falconeri Hook.f. ( 6) not with O. anamalayana J.Joseph.The photo plate of O. saintberchmansii is a typical species of O. anamalayana and earlier reported from Idukki and the major districts of Kerala.Later, O. saintberchmansii was erroneously synonymized under the name O. brunoniana (5 & 7).The characters viz., "lip reflexed, ovate in outline, gland dotted, glabrous, narrow and longitudinally elongated oblong around the disc, shallowly crenate, unlobuled; 2-lobuled at apex, orbicular, shallowly crenate, diverging; disc ovate, lanceolate, V-shaped," corresponds only to the species of O. anamalayana (Table 1).Therefore, O. saintberchmansii is validly placed here as synonym of O. anamalayana.Oberonia josephi was reported in Thirunelly, Wayanad district, Kerala (8).Recently, this species distribution was recorded in Kozhikode (9).Sivadasan and Balakrishnan (10) discovered Oberonia wynadensis from Chembra peak, Wayanad district, Kerala.The authors (10) compared the species to O. josephi and O. sebastiana while describing it.It was described that, "O.wyanadensis is similar to O. josephi but differs in that lateral lobes of the lip are narrowly falcate; lobules of the midlobe are spherical, crenulatr-serrulate margined, and semilunar.Flower looks similar to O. sebastiana but lack of a disc at the base of the labellum; 3 or 5 nerves in the lip; and extremely large lateral lobes".

Habit
wyanadensis have no differentiating traits; all characters strongly resemble the same.The same species was also obtained at the original site, Chembra Peak in the Wayanad area (Table 2).After dissecting the live floral material, the species of O. josephi was determined.As a result, O. wyanadensis is treated here synonym of O. josephi.

Table 1 .
Comparison of diagnostic characters of O. anamalayana with O. saint-berchmansii

Table 2 .
Comparison of diagnostic characters of O. josephi with O. wynadensis