The Balipara Foundation is set to launch a first-of-its-kind app Orchids of Himalaya, at the Eastern Himalayas Naturenomics Forum meet in November.
Orchids especially from Sikkim and Arunachal will feature in the app apart from other northeast states.
The app will create a database of different species of orchids of Eastern Himalayas, including the northeastern region.
Balipara Foundation, which is an NGO based in Assam mandated to compel both global and community-level involvement in Naturenomics inspired development initiatives.
The Balipara Foundation, is doing this in collaboration with ‘Orchid hunter of India’ Naresh Swami, author of Terrestrial Orchids (2016) and Hidden Treasures: Rare Plants of the Alpine Himalaya, is shortly going to launch an app ‘Orchids of Himalaya’.
Swami travelled about 27,000 km on foot looking for unknown plants, particularly orchids, in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. He has documented over 530 species of orchids in Sikkim.
This app on orchids of the Eastern Himalayas, will display 200 species of orchids, and would be upgraded to 350 species next year.
“In the coming years, this app will showcase all the orchid species from the region of eastern Himalaya, thus establishing it as a database and reference for further studies and research for everyone across the globe,” Saurav Malhotra of the Balipara Foundation said.
Each species page will consist of five stunning images and description, besides other details.
“The most important factor of this app is that, it can be viewed offline and is free to download, thus enabling usage of the same in far-off regions where internet is not available. Also, the free download will help everyone make the most of this app,” he said, reports The Assam Tribune.
To be available on Google Play, it will have several user-friendly features and search options are added to find each species with ease.