合萼兰属 he e lan shu

Authors: Xinqi Chen & Jeffrey J. Wood

Herbs, epiphytic. Rhizome creeping, branched; roots slender, branched, fleshy, with ascending catch-roots. Pseudobulbs crowded, ovoid or subovoid, with 2 or 3 nodes, covered at base by slender, silvery sheaths, 2- or 3-leaved. Leaves apical, midrib sunken above, prominently raised beneath, petiolate. Inflorescence racemose or paniculate, heteranthous, many flowered, arising from base of pseudobulb; peduncle terete, long; floral bracts persistent. Flowers not resupinate, twisted, widely open, small. Sepals lanceolate, concave at apex; lateral sepals fused to form a synsepal. Petals spreading, oblong to obovate; lip 3-lobed, pandurate to entire; disk 2-keeled. Column straight to sigmoid; stelidia 2, long, parallel, porrect or decurved; rostellum beaklike, bifurcate; pollinia 4, connate in 2 pairs.

Six species: N India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indochina eastward through Malaysia and Indonesia to the Philippines, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Australia; one species in China.

Lower Taxon

• Acriopsis indica Wight