Vexillabium Maekawa
旗唇蘭屬
LEOU, Chong-Sheng
Terrestrial perennial herbs with underguound rhizome, without normal roots. Stems ascending, nodose, leafy. Leaves petiolate, ovate to lanceolate. Flowers few, terminal spike; sepals more or less connate at middle forming tube, dorsal one smaller, erect, lateral ones larger, connate at base and surrounding saccate base of lip; petals oblique, appressed to dorsal sepal forming hood; lip Y-or T-shaped, tripartite, hypochile produced into bilobed sac containing callose protuberance or papillae inside, mesochile contracted into narrow, entire or toothed claw, epichile dilated into flabellate and emarginate blade; column stout, erect; anther on dorsal side of column, 2-celled; pollinia 2, each in 2-partite, sectile, narrowed into short caudicle attaching to viscidium; stigma single, on ventral side of column below rostellum; rostellum erect, cleft, twisted at apex.
More than five species; China, Japan, the Philippines and adjacent islands. Two species in Taiwan.
