Cephalanthera austiniae

Cephalanthera austiniae

Cephalanthera austiniae is a plant of the genus helleborine ( Cephalanthera ) in the orchid family ( Orchidaceae). Is native to the western United States and Canada, it is the only species of the genus Cephalanthera outside of Europe and Asia, and one of three ways, which is entirely dependent on the symbiotic mycorrhizal than nutrition. It was named in honor of American botanist Rebecca Austin Merritt, who had collected the type specimen.

Description

The plant reaches a height 19-65 cm and is colored pure white. The leaves are at first pure white and later brown. They are differ -ended to trockenhäutigen, regressed to 10 -cm-long scale-leaves, the upper ones are smaller.

In the lower inflorescence, also trockenhäutigen bracts are often leaf-like, the upper mostly receded, lanceolate, acuminate. The flowers are obliquely, are half-open, white in color and have vanilla smell. The sepals ( sepals ) reach a size 12-20 × 4-7 mm and have a lanceolate - elliptical shape with a widened base and blunt tip to spitzlicher. They are bent forward, but do not contact each other. The lateral petals ( petals ) are verkehrtlanzettlich, curved, 10-17 × 3-6 mm in size and connected to the move permanent sepal. The lip measures 8-12 × 9-14 mm, and is three-lobed. It is divided by a constriction into a Hypochil and a Epichil. The Hypochil is bagged out at the base, its lateral lobes surrounding the column. The Epichil is bent down, the upper side in the middle, and a yellow color has thickened, parallel partitions. The fruit capsules are 15 × 10 mm in size, upright and elliptical in outline - verkehrtlanzettlich.

Dissemination

Cephalanthera austiniae thrives on mineral soils in moist to dry coniferous forests. Altitudes 0-2200 meters can be colonized.

The distribution area is located in western North America in the U.S. states of California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington and southern British Columbia in Canada.

Ecology

This mykoheterotrophe orchid has no chlorophyll, so it provides no energy from sunlight for itself forth. Instead, she lives heterotrophic fungi where they parasitized.