Orchid Information - Family Orchidaceae Subfamily Orchidoideae Tribe Orchideae

Orchideae Dressler & Dodson, Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 47 (1960) 25-67. Type genus: Orchis L.

Synonyms:

• Tribe Ophrydeae Lindl. Coll. Bot. App. (1826). Type genus: Ophrys L.
• Tribe Gymnadenieae Endl., Fl. Poson. (1830) 162. Type genus: Gymnadenia R.B r.
• Tribe Habenariae Dunsterv. & Garay, Venez. Orch. Ill. 2 (1961) 28. Type genus: Habenaria Willd.
• Tribe Huttonaeae Szlachetko, Fol. Geobot. Phytotax. 26 (1991) 326.Type genus: Huttonaea Harv.

Terrestrials or rarely epiphytes or mycoheterotrophic plants with leaves reduced to colourless scales, herbaceous. Tubers usually present, ovoid, spherical, ellipsoid or cylindrical­ fusiform, solitary or in clusters, hairy or glabrous, sometimes borne on short to long stolons or root-like stolons; rhizome sometimes present. Leaves spirally arranged, 1 to many, basal or along the stem, deciduous or rarely persistent for more than 1 year, the lowermost 1 to several reduced to sheaths, the uppermost often scale-like; often with leaf sheath. Inflorescence terminal, erect or curved, 1- many flowered, rarely secund; peduncle usually terete, glabrous or less often hairy or glandular; floral bracts linear, lanceolate, ovate or elliptic, sometimes cucullate, usually glabrous. Flowers small to large, usually resupinate; pedicel usually short, often obscure. Median sepal free or often adnate to the petals forming a hood over the column. Lateral sepals usually free, rarely adnate to the base of the column, the lip, the stigma lobes or the rostellum. Petals entire or 2-lobed, often porrect, sometimes adnate to the median sepal. Column usually lower­ most in flower, usually deflexed, entire or 3- or 5-lobed, less commonly bipartite, occasionally with a callus; spur often present, saccate, scrotiform, fusiform, club-shaped or cylindrical, rarely fused to the ovary. Column erect or decumbent, at the base rarely adnate to other floral parts, usually with 2 sessile or stalked staminodes or auricles, usually shorter than the column, rarely filiform and as long as or longer than the column; anther 2-locular, thecae either adnate to each-other or separated on a more or less broad connective; pollinia 2 or 4, sectile, attached by short to elongate caudicles to 1 or 2 viscidia; stigma entire or 2-lobed, sessile or stalked, concave to convex; rostellum usually 3 -lobed, sometimes obscure, the mid-lobe erect, lying between or in front of the anther thecae, the lateral lobes short to long, porrect, rarely incurved or curved upwards. Ovary distinct, glabrous or less frequently hairy or glandular.
(after Cribb 2001)

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