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Plant

Orchid tree

Bauhinia variegata

हिन्दी: कचनार

IUCN: Least Concern
Orchid tree (Bauhinia variegata) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Jhalana Doongri, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Bauhinia variegata
Hindi name
कचनार
Family
Fabaceae, order Fabales
Group
Plant
Conservation status
Least Concern

Orchid flowers on bare winter branches.

  • Spot it Split, heart-shaped leaves and pink-white orchid-like flowers.
  • Home Roadsides, gardens and forests.
  • Food web Early flowers give nectar to bees and butterflies.
  • Why it matters Blooms early, giving bees and butterflies nectar when little else flowers, and its leaves enrich the soil.

Read more: Bauhinia variegata on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 1 verified record of this species on iNaturalist in 2009, in Jaipur.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikidata (Hindi labels for species) (database). Open data, used for Hindi common names.
  5. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  6. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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