Pseudogoodyera

Pseudogoodyera is a genus of the orchid family ( Orchidaceae). It contains one to three species that are common in Central America and Cuba.

Description

The Pseudogoodyera species are small herbaceous plants. The roots stand together in bunches, they are fleshy, cylindrical to spindle -shaped and hairy. Two or three stalked leaves are in a basal rosette. The leaf blade is lanceolate to oval, it ends pointed, leaf color is a dark green with silver lined leaf veins or spots. In its heyday, the leaves are not wilted.

The racemose inflorescence is dense and many flowered, the flowers are small indistinct einseitswendig. Especially at the top of the inflorescence axis is hairy. The bracts are tightly and wrap the peduncle, they are tubular to lanceolate, pointed, their color is reddish. The tiny flowers are reddish - green with white lip. The ovary is fusiform, sessile, somewhat twisted and slightly hairy. The dorsal sepal is free, bent oval and concave. The lateral sepals are fused with their asymmetric bases to a small bulge. The petals are narrow spatulate, with the inner edge they adhere to the dorsal sepal, the tips are free. The lip at the base is narrow ( nailed ) and laterally with two visible as indistinct thickening nectar glands, earlier she goes to the heart - to shell-shaped lamina. It is quite fleshy with thinner edges, the sides are beaten up and adhere to the column. The column is short, curved, hairy on the underside. It extends beyond the joint with the ovary and forms a slightly curved pedestal, which is about as long as the actual column. The scar is kidney-shaped or semi- circular in shape and is transverse to the column axis. The stamen is broadly oval, heart-shaped at the base, obtuse to rounded front. It includes the club-shaped, yellow pollinia, which on a small, oval viscid disc ( Viscidium ) depend. The separation between scar tissue and stamen ( rostellum ) is quite short and trapezoidal, the Viscidium leaves after removing a rounded recess. The upright capsules are obovate.

Occurrence

The species of the genus Pseudogoodyera are found in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Cuba. They colonize altitudes up to 1000 meters. You are terrestrial or lithophythisch ago in tropical evergreen or seasonal laubabwerfendem forest.

Systematics and botanical history

Pseudogoodyera is classified within the tribe Cranichideae in the subtribe Spiranthinae. The genus was described in 1920 by Rudolf Schlechter. The name refers to the fact that the type species, Pseudogoodyera wrightii, was first filed by Reichenbach in the distantly related genus Goodyera. Worse were the genera Brachystele, Mesadenus and Sauroglossum as the next of kin, the actual relationships are unclear.

All three types have been provided by different authors in the genre Pseudogoodyera, had been initially described as Spiranthes. Bad described in 1920 Pseudogoodyera wrightii, the genus was also used by Leslie Garay in his revision of the Spiranthinae of 1982. Burns Balogh introduced in 1986 as a further type Pseudogoodyera gonzalezii on, of Garay and also considered by Salazar Physogyne 2003. The third type is described in 1994 by Szlachetko Pseudogoodyera pseudogoodyeroides, which is, however, regarded by Govaerts as a synonym for Pseudogoodyera wrightii.