Porphyrostachys

Porphyrostachys is a genus of the orchid family ( Orchidaceae). It consists of only two species of herbaceous plants that are native to the Andes of South America.

Description

The two species of the genus are terrestrial Porphyrostachys growing herbaceous plants, they grow up to 80 inches high. The tufts springing roots are fleshy, hairy and thickened fusiform. The leaves are in a basal rosette, they are distinctly stalked. Their shape is oval, the heyday they do not exist.

The racemose, densely covered with numerous flowers inflorescence is terminal. He is upright, hairless and wearing translucent, papery bracts. The bracts are about as long as the ovary or slightly longer. The ovary is sessile and edgy at Porphyrostachys pilifera in cross section. The flowers appear 'upside and conspicuously colored reddish. The dorsal sepal is repulsed or turned back spiral. The lateral sepals are asymmetrical, repulsed or bent back, fused together at the base and a piece of far decurrent on the ovary. The petals are screwed linear and spiral. The lip is slightly recessed and shell-shaped, narrowed at the base abruptly ( nailed ), there fused with the run-down pedestal. Together with the lateral sepal forms the basis of the lip as a tubular Nectary. The column is hairy elongated and slender, finely warty to, at the base far beyond the point of attachment to the ovary in projection ( pedestal ). The scar consists of two surfaces which are approximately parallel and approximately under the Rostellum another. The separation layers between stamen and stigma ( rostellum ) is short and round, it ends cut. The stamen is oval to lanceolate, it includes the club-shaped pollinia.

As a flower visitors Dressler suspected because of the color and shape of flowers hummingbirds.

Occurrence

Porphyrostachys comes in the Andes of South America before in Ecuador and Peru. There are colonized 1600-3000 meters altitude. The sites are located in open, slightly shaded places in grasslands.

Systematics and botanical history

The genus was described Porphyrostachys 1854 by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. The name comes from the Greek words πορφύρεος porphyreos, " purple ", and στάχυς stachys, " ear ", together. It refers to the flower color. Type species is Porphyrostachys pilifera, before Reichenbach's description of the new genus as Altensteinia known pilifera.

Porphyrostachys is classified within the tribe Cranichideae in the subtribe Cranichidinae. Are closely related to the genera Aa and Myrosmodes.

The following species are known:

• Porphyrostachys parviflora ( C.Schweinf. ) Garay
• Porphyrostachys pilifera ( Kunth ) Rchb.f.