Ceratostylis robusta Hook.f. 1890

Plant in Situ Cameron Highlands Malaysia Photo By © David Kuehn

Common Name The Robust Ceratostylis

Flower Size 3/4" [1.8 cm]

Found in Malaysia and Sumatra at eleavations around 1500 to 1650 meters as a small sized, warm growing epiphyte with a long, stout ascending rhizome enveloepd by dark brown scarious sheaths and giving rise to a small erect pseudobulb enveloped by scarious sheaths and carrying a single apical, narrolwy lanceolatea, acute, midrib prominent beneath leaf that blooms in the winter on a single flowered inflorescence with the peduncle enveloped by a sheath and carrying densely hairy exteriors of the flowers.

This specimen has a flower that is different yet similar, from that pictured in Comber's Sumatra. The comber specimen has whiter cupped sepals and petals and a much longer rounded lip that appears to be cleft at the apex.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of Penninsular Malaysia and Singapore Seidenfaden & Wood 1992; Orchids of Sumatra Comber 2002