Vanilla roscheri Rchb.f. 1876 SUBGENUS Xanata SECTION Tethya

Photo by Bob Campbell and the Orchids of Kenya ©,

Common Name Roscher's Vanilla [German Original Collector and discoverer of species 1800's]

Flower Size 4" [10 cm]

Found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Natal South Africa in open bushlands, scrub, mangroves and open evergreen scrub at elevations of sealevel to 1050 meters as a large to giant sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with an elongate, occasionally branching stem with adventitious roots, essentially leafless but carrying green scale-like leaves that turn brown with age and blooms in the winter on a short, to 35 successively flowered inflorescence carrying strongly and sweetly fragrant flowers

"This leafless vanilla has spectacular white flowers with an apricot or pale pink throat to the lip, petals which are very broad and a lip with a somewhat undulate margin. It is very closely related to V. madagascariensis> and V. phalaenopsis from the Seychelles; if they are considered conspecific, the correct name for the species is V. phalaenopsis, the oldest epithet. Vanilla roscheri is common in tropical deciduous coastal forests of Kenya and Tanzania, and it is occasionally cultivated as ornamental. It has been only recently recorded from near Lake Sibaya in South Africa."

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of East Africa Piers 1968 photo fide; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 2 Cribb 1984 drawing fide; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Orchidaceae Part 1 Pope 1995; Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996 photo fide; African Orchids in the WIld and Cultivation LaCroix 1997; Orchids of Southern Africa Linder & Kurzweil 1999; Field Guide to the Ethiopian Orchids Demissew, Cribb & Rasmussen 2004; Lankesteriana 9(3): 355-398 Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------