Malaxis lowii (E.Morren) Ames 1921
Photo by © Eric Hunt.
Plant and flowers in situ Mt Kinabalu Borneo
Photo by © Rogier Van Vugt
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LATE
THROUGH EARLY 
Common Name or Meaning Low's Malaxis [English Orchidist 1800's]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found only in Borneo in mixed lowland and lower montane forests at elevations of sealevel to 1500 [2100] meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial orchid occuring in leaf-litter amid rocks or in swampy alluvial soils with a creeping fleshy rhizome, giving rise to fleshy, swollen below stems carrying narrowly elliptic, acuminate, asymetrical basally, marginally undulate, dull brownish purple to golden brown, with a broad central green-white band above and purple veins below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter to early spring on a lax to somewhat dense, bright purple, to 9.6" [24 cm] long, many flowered inflorescence arising with linear, acuminate, reflexed, dark purple floral bracts.
Synonyms *Microstylis lowi E. Morren 1884
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen #5 17-20 tafel 6 Rudolph Schlechter 1971 photo fide; The Plants of Mount Kinabalu Vol 2 Orchids Beaman, Wood, Beaman & Beaman 1993; Orchids of Borneo Vol 1 Chan, Shim, Lamb & Wood 1994; A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Wood & Cribb 1994; Orchids of Borneo Vol 1 Chan, Lamb, Shim & Wood 1994 drawing/photo fide; Orchids of Sarawak Beaman & Wood 2001 photo fide; A to Z of South East Asian Orchid Species Vol 1 O'Byrne 2001 photo not = M metallica; AOS Bulletin Vol 79 #9 2010 photo fide; Malesian Orchid Journal Vol 8 2011 as Crepidium lowii; The Orchids of Mount Kinabalu Vol 2 Wood, Beaman, Lamb, Chu Lun and Beaman 2011 as Crepidium lowii drawing fide/photo plant only fide; A to Z of South East Asian Orchid Species Vol 2 O'Byrne 2011 errata for Vol 1; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #2 2017 as Crepidium lowii photo fide;
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