Didymoplexis stella-silvae Hermans 2021
Photo by © Johan Hermans /TYPE Drawing by Judi Stone and Kew Bull. 76: 40 J Hermans 2021
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name The Forest Stars Didymoplexis [refers to the bright white flowers, resembling stars appearing on the forest floor]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Fianarantsoa province of Madagascar in humid evergreen forest, in deep shade, in leaf litter and humus at elevations around 800 to 1070 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with a subterranean, stem-like, terete, pale brown, elongate, a little verrucose, puberulent rhizome, giving rise to an erect stem carrying scale-like leaves at the base of the erect as an uninterrupted continuation of the rhizomatous stem, occuring in the late spring and early summer .2 x .12" [.5 × 3 mm]long, provided with with 1 to 2 brown scarious scales towards the base inflorescence, peduncle slender, .6" [1.5 mm] in diam., provided with 2 to 3 short nodes, otherwise smooth, brown, bearing a short .12" [3 mm] scale below the rachis, Rachis apical, racemose successively single, 1 to 4 flowered inflorescence with ovate, acute, verrucose abaxially, longer than the ovary floral bracfts and carrying resupinate, spreading, reclining, crystalline white flowers except for the yellow-orange lip callus and base, the lip with a greenish-yellow triangle abaxially.
" Didymoplexis stella-silvae is a holomycotrophic plant with a thin erect inflorescence carrying few flowers opening successively and one at a time. The petals are adnate to the dorsal sepal and the lateral sepals adnate to one another. The mobile truncate reniform lip, undulate to laciniate at the margin, has two rows of thorn-like hairs, a bilobed callus becoming laciniate at the front, and a column with obovate, rounded arms just below the stelidia. The new species has some characteristics in common with a number of other Didymoplexis species but there are also several distinct differences. In the Africa – Madagascar region it has flowers about half the size of D. avaratraensis and D. africana the petals and sepals are also less fused, while the lip adornments and shape and callus are also very different. It has a similar habit and flower colour to D. verrucosa , but D. stella-silvae has 1 to 4 flowers (vs 8 to 12), the sepals and petals are connate (vs fused to the middle), the lip reniform (vs transversely triangular) and two rows of long hairs on the lip (vs lines of warts from base to tip). It is closest to Didymoplexis recurvata , recently described from northern Madagascar which is comparable in size and colour, the petals and sepals adnate toward their base, its lip shape and column wings being similar but D. stella-silvae has narrower petals, and the lip larger and broader (.14 to .16 x .2 to .24" vs .204 to .208 x .36 to .3612" [3.5 – 4 × 5 – 6 mm vs 5.1 – 5.3 × 9.1 – 9.3 mm]). Didymoplexis recurvata also lacks the rows of long hairs on the disk and has a 3-lobed callus at the base (vs 2-lobed)." Hermans 2021
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Kew Bull. 76: 40 J Hermans 2021 Photo/drawing fide
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