New discovery in the rainforest
There are 30,000 varieties of orchids. Rebecca Repasky '04 (MS) found a new one.
by Kathryn Hopper
Rebecca Repasky '04 (MS) uncovered a new species of orchid called Stellilabium cuscoense. Her research was published in Orchid Digest.
Spending a year in the Peruvian rainforest put Rebecca Repasky on the cutting edge of orchid research.
A graduate student in biology, her field research was funded by a grant offered through the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program, which researches eco diversity in South America.
Of the thousands of plant samples she collected, one stood out. She sent it to Eric Christenson, a research taxonomist who specializes in orchids, to confirm her suspicion – that it was indeed a new species of the flower family.
Repasky said determining if an orchid species is new can take months in part because there are an estimated 30,000 different types of orchids, often with very subtle differences.
Christenson said Peru’s diverse ecosystems are home to an estimated 3,400 orchid species alone.
Repasky’s work paid off when she got the word that her find was indeed a new species, now called Stellilabium cuscoense, with the second word referring to his location near Cusco in Peru. She and Christenson’s research was publishing in Orchid Digest.
The yellow and purple flower resembles the female form of an insect in the area and so the flower attracts male insects attempting to mate, which actually pollinates the flower.
Repasky has completed her graduate work at TCU and now lives in Houston, but plans on attending medical school at the Texas College of Osteopathic medicine in Fort Worth this summer.
She said even though she lived in very austere conditions in the Rainforest, dining on potatoes and rice everyday, it was an amazing experience.
“I loved the pace of life there and I really miss the people I worked with and waking up on the side of a mountain in the trees,” she said. “You just don’t get that in Houston.”