Orchid Information - Genus Pholidota section Chelonanthera

Genus Pholidota sect. Chelonanthera (Blume) Butzin, Willdenowia 7 (1974) 258

Synonyms:

• Chelonanthera Blume, Bijdr. (1825) 382 (sect. 1, p.p .); Tab. & Pl. (1825) t. 2, fig. 51
• Coelogyne sect. Chelonanthera (Blume) Rchb. f., Walp. Ann. (1861) 236 (p.p.)

Type species: Pholidota gibbosa (Blume) de Vriese (lecto, indirectly chosen by Pfitzer & Kraenzlin 1907)

Pendulous or creeping epiphytes, occasionally terrestrial, glabrous except for root hairs, in one species with scattered minute hairs on the bracts and usually on the inside of sepals and petals. Attaching roots along the entire rhizome or when pendulous on the basal portion of the rhizome only; aerial roots if present more or less appressed to the rhizome, long, thin, branched. Rhizome creeping, or pendulous and in the upper part usually curved upwards, the parts between the pseudobulbs short or rather long. Scales of the young shoot enclosing the rhizome 5-14, either all enclosing the pseudobulb when this develops or the lower 5-12 arranged along the rhizome and the upper two enclosing the pseudobulb, imbricate, soon disintegrating into long fibres or long persistent even after they are dry and then more or less inflated and finally disintegrating into fibres; herbaceous, when long persistent soon dry and papyraceous; nerves many, either all rather distinct, or fine, usually only partly conspicuous. Pseudobulbs close together or rather widely spaced, all turned to one side of the rhizome or spirally arranged, long persistent. Leaves two per pseudobulb; blade ovate- or obovate-oblong to linear-lanceolate, rather large; herbaceous to sometimes stiff coriaceous; many-nerved, main nerves few, prominent or only slightly so, small nerves many, slightly prominent to rather inconspicuous. Raceme synanthous with the halfway to almost entirely emerged young leaves, rather many- to many-flowered; flowers secund, opening from base to top of the rachis, few open simultaneously, or neatly distichous, opening from above the middle part of the rachis to base and top of the rachis, finally all open simultaneously; peduncle rather short to long, either erect, flattened, straight and sturdy or thin, wiry, curved, terete; rachis rather long to long, either erect, stiff, straight, or curved, pendulous, zig-zag; sterile bracts absent to few, either caducous at anthesis or persistent. Floral bracts in the young inflorescence rather loosely imbricate, usually caducous at anthesis, either or not folded around the midrib, more or less transversely elliptic to ovate; papyraceous; nerves many, fine, all about equal. Flowers irregularly resupinate or not but then the lip still turned downwards, widely open with either only the petals or both sepals and petals recurved to rolled backwards. Pedicel either twisted or about straight, rather angular in section. Ovary more or less angular due to the ribs. Median sepal either rather deeply concave or rather convex with more or less reflexed margins, more or less ovate to ovate-oblong or elliptic; inside usually hairy or glabrous; midrib with a rounded keel or at most slightly prominent. Lateral sepals more or less asymmetric, rather deeply concave, or convex with more or less reflexed margins which are at their base clasped in a groove at the back of the hypochile, more or less elliptic to oblong or about ovate; inside usually hairy or glabrous; midrib with a more or less prominent to rarely wing-like keel or not or slightly prominent. Petals slightly asymmetric, rolled backwards. oblong to linear; inside at the base usually hairy or glabrous; nerves 1(-3). Lip rather broadly or narrowly inserted on the column, rather to distinctly sigmoid; hypochile boat-shaped to saccate; margins recurved, in front on either side with a more or less horizontal to reflexed lateral lobe, outside with a median longitudinal groove; inside in the back either with 1 or with 3 low, rounded keels, inside in front without keels or with 2 laterally slanting, more or less backwards directed keels; epichile more or less recurved, without keels or calli, lobes in front either free or more or less overlapping, apex 2-lobed. Column without column foot, large and wide; hood large, broad, thin, with entire to irregularly margin; anther inserted about halfway between the top margin of the hood and the stigma, irregularly transversely elliptic to about orbicular in outline; pollinia obliquely pear-shaped, in one species truncate near the opening and there the margin more or less drawn out; stigma deeply obliquely cup-shaped, with a more or less elliptic to ovate opening; rostellum either more or less rectangular to rounded or about ligulate to triangular. Fruit (only of P. gibbosa seen) long ellipsoid, part of the swollen column persistent on top; ribs 6, consisting of the 3 flat, towards the base carinate jugae and the longitudinal, sharp keel on each of the 3 valvae; seeds slender, fusiform, embryo elliptic.
(After De Vogel 1988)

---