Orchidaceae is a charismatic group of plants and everybody would like to know how many species are there.
According to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as of 01/01/2011 there were 26,567accepted orchid species.
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/incfamilies.do
IPNI is simply an index to all published plant names while the World Checklist is a consensus of accepted species. As mentioned by Ted all taxonomists do not agree on the names but they will agree that there are unnamed species out there. The World Checklist database changes daily but the count on the web has not been updated since 2011. I still feel that a consensus is the best approach. The importance in taxonomy is acceptance of a published name by the taxonomic community not the just the publication of a name.
According to a checklist published by Zotz (2013), there are 27 135 orchid species, of which 18 814 grow epiphytic.
Zotz G. 2013. The systematic distribution of vascular epiphytes – a critical
update. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 177: 453–481.
according to last checklist there are more than 26000 orchids species exist on the earth
Orchids are the most numerous family of plants on Earth, they contain over 27,000 different species, representing about 10% of all plants. The reasons for their incredible diversity in nature is still unknown. Even in the most inaccessible areas of tropical rainforests, botanists still efind and describe about 20 new species every year. Commercial growers around the world create an additional 150,000 registered hybrids every year by mating different orchids together. There are even more unregistered species.
http://www.oceanorchids.si/20-facts-about-orchids/
There are differences in this number, but it is estimated that there are about 30,000 species of orchids in the world and about 120,000 hybrids. Its distribution occurs throughout the planet, except in the polar and desert regions.
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