Aeranthes tenella Bosser 1971 Photo A Jubault and The Orchid Web Site

Part shade

Common Name or Meaning The Very Delicate Aeranthes

Flower Size 1.2" [2.8 cm]

Found in Madagascar and Reunion in humid, mossy, evergreen forests at elevations of 1400 to 1500 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with a very short stem carrying 4 to 6, 2 ranked, linear to oblong, flat, fairly thick leaves that blooms in the early summer on a spreading to pendant, simple to few branched, peduncle with a few distant bracts, to 5.8" [14.5 cm] long, successively 1 or 2, few flowered inflorescence carying small, white flowers.

Related to A parvula but differs in this one having wider leaves, sepals and petals that are less longly acuminate, there are not denticulations on the lip and the spur is clearly club-shaped at the apex.

Synonyms Aeranthes tenella var. borbonica Bosser 1989

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Rudolph Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 16/17/18 945-1128 Brieger 1985 photo ok; An Introduction to the Cultivated Angraecoid Orchids Of Madagascar Hillerman & Holst 1986; Orchids of Madagascar Hermans 2006; Angraecoid Orchids Stewart, Hermans and Campbell 2007; Field Guide to the Orchids of Madagascar Cribb & Herman 2009

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