In this web section, Marimurtra serves as an informative channel between the knowledge and life experience of Christopher Witty and the reader, especially to introduce the wild flora of Nepal with the purpose of encouraging interest in the world of botany.
Christopher Witty is a member of the board of trustees of the Carl Faust Private Foundation, manager of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, and has been photographing wild flowers in situ around the world for more than 50 years. But his work focuses mainly on Montseny (where he lives), the Pyrenees and the mountain ranges south of Málaga and Cádiz.
A lover of mountains and nature, Christopher has made six trips to Nepal between April and July and has photographed many flowers from 1,500 meters to 5,400 meters of altitude. Attracted first by the beauty of nature, he has learned throughout his career the vital role that plants play in relation to the well-being of the planet and the human being himself.
The main engine of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden is science. Although C. Witty is not a scientist, he understands that without the understanding and support of the public there can be no science. For this reason, he has developed a divulgative task over the years, with guided excursions, talks and photographic exhibitions of the flora he has photographed; and all with the aim of transmitting his passion for nature, to encourage interest in botany and to make records.
Nepal is a kind of sloping rectangle about 880 kilometers long and between 100 and 200 kilometers wide, with China on the northern border, and India on the south, east and west. In the north there are eight mountains of more than 8,000 meters, while just over 100 kilometers to the south we are below 1,000 meters. The variety of climate is almost infinite and therefore so is its flora.
This section will focus on introducing the wild flora photographed by Christopher Witty in different areas of Nepal.
There are nearly 300 species of orchids in Nepal from 80 different genera. While in Europe only terrestrial orchids grow, in Nepal there are terrestrial and epiphytes, plants that grow on other plants or objects without parasitizing them nutritionally.
- Dendrobium amoenum: photographed in late May by the side of the trail at just over 1,000 meters on the first day of the walk. They are up to about 2,900 meters of altitude. With the sale even in supermarkets of exotic orchids, the public is becoming more familiar with these plants. Cultivated flowers of the genus Dendrobium are very popular.
- Habenaria pectinata: photographed in July, monsoon season, at 3,000 meters among a lot of vegetation below Dhaulagiri mountain at 8,167 m. There are almost 900 species of this terrestrial orchid genus in the world but none of them in Europe. Even so, there are other genera of terrestrial orchids that can be observed in Europe and that, in addition, have some species present in different regions in Nepal.