Erythrorchis
Erythrorchis cassythoides Image Plate 26 in: R. D. Fitzgeraldi: Australian Orchids (1882 )
Erythrorchis is a genus of the orchid family ( Orchidaceae). It contains three types of herbaceous plants that are native to East and Southeast Asia as well as Australia.
Description
The species of the genus are terrestrial Erythrorchis growing herbaceous climbing plants. You are leafless and feed mykoheterotroph. Underground is an extensive rhizome and root system, usually in half -rotted wood. Above ground, climbing the reddish brown shoot with adventitious roots that form at each node. The leaves are reduced to small scales.
In the upper part of the shoot are numerous inflorescences, there are grapes or little branched panicles. The flowers are 'upside, greenish yellow, wide open. The sepals are fleshy, the petals are narrower than the outer petals. The lip is white, entire or obscurely three-lobed, the sides are beaten up and surrounded the column. The front edge of the lip is corrugated. On the lip is a callus and longitudinal, hairy keels. The column is curved and extended over the fitting on the ovary out ( " pillar "). The stamen is zweikammrig, the two pollinia not further subdivided and hard. The capsule fruit is long and narrow, it contains numerous winged seeds. The wings runs around the seeds and is deeply incised on one side, so that the seed is similar in outline about a lily pad. The propagation of seeds Erythrorchis via the wind.
Dissemination
Erythrorchis is in Japan and Taiwan native ( Erythrorchis ochobiensis ) in Indo-China, the Philippines and in the western part of the island world of Indonesia ( Erythrorchis ochobiensis and Erythrorchis altissima ) and in south-east Australia ( Erythrorchis cassythoides ). The plants are found in forests and need larger accumulations dead wood.
Systematics and botanical history
Erythrorchis is classified within the subfamily Vanilloideae in the tribe Vanilleae. The most closely related genera are Cyrtosia, Galeola and pseudo Vanilla.
Erythrorchis was first described in 1837 by Carl Ludwig Blume. The name comes from the Greek Erythrorchis erythros, "red", and describes the reddish color of the stems. Type species is Erythrorchis altissima, flower had this plant in 1825 described as Cyrtosia altissima. All three types of Erythrorchis were belonging to the genus as long Galeola considered. Only Garay used again in 1986 the name Erythrorchis and stood next to Blume's type species, two additional species that had been previously designated as Galeola to this genus.
The following three species are counted to the genus Erythrorchis:
- Erythrorchis altissima ( flower) flower
- Erythrorchis cassythoides ( A.Cunn. Ex Lindl. ) Garay
- Erythrorchis ochobiensis ( Hayata ) Garay