Tezpur: A new species of orchid found in Arunachal Pradesh has been named after a former army general for his love of orchids.

The new species - Oberonia Bopannae - was discovered by a Botanical Survey of India (BSI) scientist Krishna Chowlu at the Tengapani range in Namsai district.

Documented in the Phytotaxa journal, Chowlu who works at BSI office in Itanagar, said on Thursday that she found this species in 2015 and researched it for two years.

Chowlu said in the article that the specific epithet Bopannae has been given in honour of Lt Gen. (retd) B.K. Bopanna, who was a former NCC director-general, a great orchid lover and enthusiast. Bopanna hails from Coorg in Karnataka.

He was commissioned into the 11th Gorkha Rifles on February 14, 1965. He obtained his post-graduate degree in defence studies from the Madras University and MBA from Osmania University. He also served in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and other locations in the Northeast.

The article was co-authored by Saloni Malik, Pankaj Kumar and S.B. Babbar.

"During a regular botanical survey in the Tengapani range of Namsai district, a small population of interesting small epiphytic orchid belonging to Oberonia was discovered," Chowlu said.

A critical and comparative study of the live material and available literatures and herbarium consultation at some places revealed this collection as a new species with close affinity with Oberonia gammiei.

"The plant was collected in the vegetative stage. Almost all the Oberonias are difficult to differentiate in their vegetative stage. After its flowering, a critical and comparative study of the live material revealed this collection as a new species with a close affinity to the Oberonia gammiei," she said.

Oberonia Bopannae grows on moss covered tree trunk of small and large trees in tropical wet evergreen forest at an altitude of about 151 metres.

Of about 1,350 species of orchids reported from India, nearly 560 species are from Arunachal Pradesh.