Dilochia cantleyi (Hook. f.) Ridl. 1896

Photo by © Phoon Sook Ngoh

Common Name or Meaning Cantley's Dilochia

Flower Size 1 1/2" [3.7 cm]

Found in Malaya, Borneo and Sumatra at elevations around 1550 to 2200 meters in montane forests on mountain ridges in high open places as a large sized, monopodial, cool to cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial in peat bogs or sphagnum moss banks with an elongate bamboo-like stem carrying many, rather stiff, articulated to the stem , narrowly pointed leaves and a terminal, rather compact, several branched, to 12" [to 30 cm] long, several to many successively flowered so it lasts for months, erect to decurved inflorescence with creamy colored bracts and short-lived, cup shaped flowers occuring in the summer .

This species always has 5 ridges on the lip three central prominent ones and 2 on either far side that is less visible. If you look closely in the photo above you can easily make out the 5 ridges. Dilochia wallichii has only three thiner ridges on the lip.

Synonyms *Arundina cantleyi Hook. f. 1890

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora of Malaya Vol 1 Holttum 1957 drawing fide; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Die Orchideen Band 3 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas Liferung #14 820 - 880 1984; The Orchids of Penninsular Mayasia and Singapore Seidenfaden & Wood 1992 drawing fide; Orchids of Malaya Segerback 1992 photos fide; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Laurent 1992 photo fide; The Plants of Mount Kinabalu Vol 2 Orchids Beaman, Wood, Beaman & Beaman 1993 photo fide; Phylogeny and Classification of the Orchid Family Dressler 1993 photo good; A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Wood & Cribb 1994; Orchids of Sumatra Comber 2001; Orchids of Sarawak Beaman, Wood & Beaman etal 2001; Wild Orchids of the Cameron Highlands REACH 2009 photo fide; The Orchids of Mount Kinabalu Vol 2 Wood, Beaman, Lamb, Chu Lun and Beaman 2011 photo fide; Wild Orchids of Penninsular Malaysia Ong, O'Byrne, Yong & Saw 2011 photo ok

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