Orchidaceae is a diverse and
widespread family of
flowering plants, with blooms that are often colourful and often fragrant,
commonly known as the
orchid family. Along with the
Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. Orchidaceae has about 27,800 currently accepted
species, distributed in about 880
genera. The determination of which family is larger is still under debate, because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless, the number of orchid species nearly equals the number of
bony fishes and is more than twice the number of
bird species, and about four times the number of
mammal species. The family also encompasses about 6–11% of all
seed plants. The largest genera are
Bulbophyllum (2,000 species),
Epidendrum (1,500 species),
Dendrobium (1,400 species) and
Pleurothallis (1,000 species).
