Cephalantheropsis Guillaumin

Kurzweil, Hubert, 2010, A precursory study of the Calanthe group (Orchidaceae) in Thailand, Adansonia (3) 32 (1), pp. 57-107 : 101-102

Genus Cephalantheropsis Guillaumin

Bulletin du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, sér. 2, 32: 188 (1960); Seidenfaden, Opera Botanica 89: 38-40 (1986); Ormerod, Orchid Digest 62: 155- 159 (1998); Pridgeon et al., Genera Orchidacearum 4: 127-129 (2005). — Type species: Cephalantheropsis lateriscapa Guillaumin.

DESCRIPTION

Terrestrial or epilithic herbs, evergreen, hirsute or subglabrous; stems cane-like and elongate-fusiform, close together, several-noded. Basal sheaths few, mostly already partly or entirely decayed and absent at the flowering time. Leaves few, spreading, plicate, perennial, lanceolate-oblong, acute or acuminate, inserted in the upper part of the stem, with the petioles forming a pseudostem. Inflorescences unbranched, arising one third to half-way up the stem; sterile bracts few, tubular and sheathing; flower-bearing part racemose, unbranched, fewto many-flowered, erect; floral bracts caducous. Flowers small or medium-sized, resupinate, yellow in the Thai species, turning blackish-blue when damaged or with age. Ovary not distinct from the pedicel. Sepals and petals similar, free, spreading. Lip 3-lobed, largely free from the gynostemium and united with it only at the very base, spurless, side lobes usually erect and partly enclosing the gynostemium. Gynostemium erect or suberect, hairy; anther incumbent, operculate, with 8 waxy, clavate pollinia; stigma in a cavity below the rostellum.

DISTRIBUTION

A small genus of five species distributed in Asia from NE India through the whole of SE Asia eastwards

as far as the N Moluccas and northwards as far as Taiwan and S Japan; a single species in Thailand.