Orchid Information - Family Orchidaceae Subfamily Orchidoideae Tribe Diseae

Diseae (Lindl. ex Benth.) Dressler, .Selbyana, 5 (1979) 204. Type genus: Disa Bergius.

Synonyms:

• Subtribe Disidae Lindl., Veg. .Kingd. ed. 2 (1846) 182, without description.
• Subtribe Disinae 1.indl. ex. Benth., J. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), 18 (1881) 288 (as ‘Diseae’).

Terrestrials, almost always without indument. Tubers annual, globular to elongate, 0.3-2.5 cm diam., not lobed but sometimes bifid at the top. Stems usually upright, slender and wiry to stout. Leaves in a rosette or basally or all along the stem, mostly narrowly lanceolate or linear, sometimes broadly ovate. Inflorescence terminal, not branched, elongate or a head-like cluster, rarely 1-­flowered. Flowers small to large, resupinate or not. Median sepal not lobed, often helmet-shaped and spurred, sometimes adnate to the petals forming a hood; apex often apiculate. Lateral sepal not lobed, spreading or reflexed, rarely saccate; apex often apiculate. Petals spreading, sometimes with the median sepal forming a hood, exerted from this or adnate to the median sepal. ribbon-shaped to falcate, usually undivided, often fused at the base with the column; very rarely stalked or saccate; base often with a lobe; margin rarely fringed; apex sometimes bifid. Lip either simple and without spur, or helmet-shaped with 2 separate spurs, usually as long as or longer than the column, rarely minute. Column with an undifferentiated stalk or not; anther with 2 usually parallel, adjacent thecae, or thecae placed on the arms of a long, horseshoe-shaped connective, horizontally reflexed or pendent, rarely erect or suberect, globose to elongate, rarely with a prominent terminal connective projection the lateral appendages mostly prominent and ornamented; pollinia 2, sectile, with globose to disk-like viscidia; stigma pad-like and often 3-pulvinate or flap-like; rostellum tall, 3-lobed with a large or small central lobe, 2-lobed or not lobed; usually with 2 separate viscidia, very rarely with only 1 viscidium.
(Linder & Kurzweil 2001)

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