BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Campripcr, Massacnusetts, May 19, 1960 
Vor. 19, No. 3 
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ORCHIDACEAE! 
BY 
Lestik A. Garay 
INTRODUCTION 
To discourse on the origin of the Orchid family, which 
represents the culmination of one of the evolutionary 
lines of the Monocotyledons, is a rather formidable task. 
Its existing members display such a high degree of com- 
plexity of organization in their structures that the primi- 
tive characters or simple elements, which might have 
shed light on ancestral origins, are either lost or well 
masked. When we take into consideration that the Or- 
chid family, comprising at present some 30,000 species 
distributed in 800 genera, is devoid of paleobotanical 
documentation, save Protorchis monorchis Massal. from 
the Eocene of Monte Bolea, it is impossible to explain 
or even state the manner in which the various evolution- 
ary forces have acted upon the primordial organism that 
served as the prototype for modern species. In addition 
to these difficulties, information on the anatomy, embry- 
ology, genetics, cytology, fertilization, ecology, ete., of 
today’s species is too fragmentary to give us a reliable 
and coherent picture. 
In spite of these deficiencies, I shall attempt to pre- 
sent an outline of the Orchid family and its origin, as I 
'This paper will be read on May 31, 1960 during the 3rd World 
Orchid Conference in London, England. 
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