Microcoelia obovata Summerh. 1945 Photo by © Lourens Grobler

THROUGH

Common Name The Obovate Microcoelia

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Natal South Africa at elevations of sea level to 1100 meters in woodland, woodland grasslands and riverine forests in exposed locations as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with stiff straight roots and blooms in the spring and summer on up to 10, erect to pendent, flexuous, terete to faintly angled, to 4" to 7.2" [10 to 18 cm] long, densely to sparsely, to 20 flowered inflorescence with mostly sheathing bracts and carrying flowers without a discernable scent.

This species is distiguished from all others in the genus by the semi-circularly curved spur and the comparitively long labellum

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of East Africa Piers 1968 photo good; AOS Bulletin Vol 48 No 2 1979 photo good; A Monograph of the Genus Microcoelia [Orchidaceae] Jonsson 1981 drawing; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 3 Cribb 1989; Orchids of Kenya Stewart 1996 photo good; African Orchids in the Wild and Cultivation LaCroix 1997; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Orchidaceae Part 2 Pope 1998; Orchids of Southern Africa Linder & Kurzweil 1999; Angraecoid Orchids Stewart, Hermans and Campbell 2006 photo fide

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