W.A. Whistler

ORCHIDACEAE
Orchid Family
The family Orchidaceae comprises 762 genera and over 26,000 species (Mabberley 2017) of terrestrial and epiphytic orchids found throughout the tropics and subtropics, but also common in temperate areas. Many orchids are cultivated and hybridized as ornamentals, and native species make up a large part of the epiphytic flora in tropical rain forests. Forty-three genera occur in Samoa, 40 of them with native species. These comprise 99 native species, 19 of them endemic. Another three naturalized species are apparently of modern introduction. There has been much confusion in the naming of orchids, but the treatment here generally follows Genera Orchidacearum series (Pridgeon et al. 1999–2014). A number of authors have published on the orchids of Samoa and the nearby islands, including Wendland (1862), Kraenzlein (1898), Schlechter (1906), Fleischmann & Rechinger (1910), Beccari (1910, 1913), Burret (1935), Dowd (1989), Kores (1989), Whistler (1992), and Cribb & Whistler (1996, 2011). Although there are nearly a hundred native orchids in Samoa, there is no Samoan name for any of them. No local uses or names have been recorded, as orchids are virtually unrecognized (other than as the occasional ornamental) in Samoa. The only name used nowadays is oketi, a simple transliteration of orchid, which is applied to the showy cultivated ones. All Samoan orchids have simple leaves (unless they are leafless) usually articulate to a sheath, glabrous leaf blades with an entire margin, an inferior ovary with parietal placentation, and a single stamen comprising 2–8 pollinia.