Kingidium P. F. Hunt; Kingiella Rolfe; Polychilos Breda.

Herbs, terrestrial, lithophytic, and epiphytic, monopodial. Stems short, leafy, concealed by overlapping persistent leaf sheaths, rooting at base. Leaves persistent or sometimes deciduous, alternate, distichous, oblong to broadly elliptic, sometimes marbled or suffused with purple or silver, succulent. Inflorescences erect to laxly pendulous, axillary pedunculate racemes or panicles; peduncle terete; rachis terete or bilaterally compressed, rarely swollen relative to peduncle; floral bracts persistent, inconspicuous, succulent or papery. Flowers often fragrant, few to many, resupinate, produced simultaneously or in succession over time, often long-lasting, inconspicuous to showy, plain or variously spotted, marbled, or barred, membranous to thickly fleshy. Pedicel and ovary terete, slender, shallowly 6-sulcate. Sepals and petals free, spreading, subsimilar to dimorphic, lateral sepals usually oblique and larger than dorsal sepal. Lip 3-lobed, clawed, continuous with foot, sometimes saccate or subsaccate; lateral lobes erect and subparallel, often callose; mid-lobe oblong-elliptic to obtrullate, rarely transverse, apex sometimes with a pair of tendril-like appendages (cirri), sometimes pubescent to villous, callus uni-, bi-, or triseriate, longitudinal, rarely transverse; column stout, often subtended by a pair of fleshy kneelike protrusions, without wings, with a foot, usually dilated lateral to stigma. Pollinia 2 or 4, on a common spatulate stipe and viscidium. Capsule pedicellate.

The genus Phalaenopsis has been monographed by Christenson (Phalaenopsis Monogr. 2001).

Phalaenopsis decumbens (Griffith) Holttum (Bull. Gard. Singapore 11: 286. 1947; Aerides decumbens Griffith, Not. Pl. Asiat. 3: 365. 1851), described from Myanmar, has been noted from Hainan (Press et al., Annot. Checkl. Fl. Pl. Nepal, 223. 2000). However, the present authors found no relevant specimens and therefore could not substantiate the occurrence of this species in China.

Between 40 and 45 species: from India to S China, Thailand, Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia to the Philippines and New Guinea, the majority in Indonesia and the Philippines; 12 species (four endemic) in China.

(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Jeffrey J. Wood)