Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Leafy pseudostems 2–3 m tall.

Stems: Rhizomes fibrous, creeping.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, distichous, oriented transverse to the rhizome. Blades oblong–lanceolate, 30––60 cm long × 5––10 cm wide. Apex acuminate with a spiral mucro. Base attenuate. Surfaces glabrous except pubescent at margin. Margins entire. Lateral veins parallel, diverging from prominent midrib. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence terminal on leafy shoot, usually pendent or nodding, 12–15" long, rachis reddish, hairy; bracts absent, bractlet 1–1.5" long, enclosing 2 flowers, persistent. Flowers fragrant, bisexual (perfect), zygomorphic, pedicellate, Pedicel 1–2 cm. Calyx 3-lobed, the lobes unequal; white, subcampanulate, ca. 2 cm, split on 1 side, apex toothed. Corolla adnate with the stamens into a floral tube, distally 3-lobed; corolla lobes unequal, lobes white tipped pink; corolla tube shorter than calyx; lobes milky white with pink apex, oblong, ca. 3 cm; central lobe larger than lateral ones. Stamens 5, in 2 whorls, only the posterior one of the inner whorl fertile, the other 2 members of inner whorl connate to form a highly variable, often conspicuous labellum; labellum broadly ovate, 1–1.2(–1.8)" long, red mottled yellow, edge ruffled, Lateral staminodes subulate, ca. 2 mm. Labellum yellow with purple–red stripes, broadly ovate–spatulate, 4-6 cm, apex crisped. Stamens ca. 2.5 cm. Ovary inferior, with 2 variously developed apical nectary glands, 3-celled, sometimes incompletely so, rarely 1-celled, placentation axile, parietal (or essentially basal), or rarely free-central; ovules usually numerous; style filiform, often enveloped in a groove of the fertile stamen and embraced by the thecae; stigma various, often papillose and protruding beyond anther. Ovary golden yellow hirsute.

Fruit: Fruit a ± globose; vermilion capsules; ca. 2 cm in diameter in diameter; ribbed; pubescent. ribbed; apex with persistent calyx. Seeds angled; 0.25 cm in diameter; gray.

Ploidy: 2n = 48

Habitat:

Elevation Range: