An orchid.

Siliguri, Dec. 15: The forest department has stumbled upon a reportedly rare, yet-to-be-identified and endemic orchid species growing on the trunks of trees along Sevoke Road.

The discovery comes at a time when the public works department is felling the trees flanking the road for widening it.

Forest officials are now busy trying to rehabilitate the precious discoveries, which even experts have failed to identify or classify. District forest officer for parks and gardens, Baikunthapur range, Debanshu Mallik told The Telegraph: “The Siliguri Municipal Corporation has intimated us about the flowering orchids. We made arrangements to replant and rehabilitate them at Surya Sen Park the moment we got the news. Efforts are on to make the plants survive on their new host trees. We will invite some orchid experts to identify and classify the species once the replanting is over.”

Botanists and orchid experts, however, criticised the forest department’s inability to identify the exotic plant. “The Darjeeling hills boast of orchid specialists, members of the Indian Subcontinent Orchid Specialist Group and functionaries of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. But none of the bodies were approached for identification of the plants,” said A.K. Das, professor of botany, North Bengal University.

“Botanists, orchid experts or the Botanical Survey of India has to identify the species and add it to the red book if it is considered worth conserving. Though the forest department seeks help from NBU in such cases, we were not informed this time. There are many orchids in the region,” he added.

Members of a team from a Delhi-based solid waste management company first noticed the orchids. The team, invited by the civic body, requested it to preserve the “beautiful” plant.

“We intimated the findings of the team to the forest department. The species is being preserved,” said Samir Banerjee, chief executive officer of the municipality.