Globba spathulata

The species has been reported as widespread in India, however, habitat degradation forms the basis of a suspected negative population trend (Kumar and Singh 2018). In Bangladesh, the species was observed in Chittagong Hill Tracts where it was abundant along watercourses in 1999; since then, however, the human pressure on the environment in Bangladesh has risen considerably, especially since the Rohingya arrived there from Myanmar (M. Newman pers. comm. 2019).

Twenty mature individuals were sighted in Dampa Tiger Reserve, India (Kumar and Signh 2018). Based on this information, it is assumed that each of the reported 11 sites for this species, representative of its global occurrence, may still support these plants and each of those sub-populations would support at least a similar number (~20) of mature individuals. Further, recognising that large parts of NE India, Chittagong Hill Tract region, and the contiguous forested areas of Myanmar where this species is expected to occur, are all poorly surveyed, at least some sub-populations of the species remain to be documented.

It has been taken into account also the fact that at times observers may over-estimate numbers of mature individuals sighted, by not recognising that many of the flowering plants may have branched out of the same rhizome, hence reflective of them being clones (keeping in mind the definition of a mature individual recognises clades from a single rhizome as clones, and hence a single individual). All of these factors led us to believe that it is possible for the global population of the species to be less than 500 mature individuals.