Bulbophyllum metallica Aver. & K.S.Nguyen 2019 SECTION Cirrhopetalum [Lindl.] Rchb.f 1861
Photos by © Leonid Averyanov and K.S. Nguyen, Phytotaxa 404 (6): 231–244 Aver. & Vuong 2019 New species of Bulbophyllum (Orchidaceae) in the flora of Vietnam II
Common Name The Blue Green Shiny Leaf Bulbophyllum
Flower Size .8" [2 cm] long
Found in northern Vietnam in primary broadleaved evergreen humid forests on granite, quartzite and limestone along mountain streams at elevations of 1000 to 1200 meters as a large to giant sized, cool growing epiphyte with a branching, creeping, pendulous, rigid, semiswoody rhizome giving rise to close set, glossy dark green to dark brown-purple, narrowly cylindric, straight or slightly curved, smooth or longitudinally irregularly grooved pseudobulbs carrying a single, apical, above dark green, sometime tinged with dirty purple, having blue-green metallic shining, below light pale green with dirty purple-violet median vein, thin, coriaceous, lanceolate or narrowly oblong elliptic, apex acute, narrowing at the base into short petiole-like stalk base leaf that blooms in the fall on a basal, horizontally held, .2 to .6" [.5 to 1.5 cm] long, provided at the base with a few, scarious to papyeraceous,, dull brown-grey, loose sheaths, rachis very short, in a loose umbel, simultaneously 1 to 6 flowered inflorescence with white to dull pink, narrowly ovate, concave, acute, about half as long as the ovary floral bracts carrying slightly unpleaqsantly scented flowers that do not open well.
"Similar to B. seidenfadenii A.D. Kerr, B. spathulatum (E.W. Cooper) Seidenf. and B. unciniferum Seidenf. but differs in the pendulous rhizomes up to 60" [1.5 meters] long, narrowly cylindric, petiolelike pseudobulbs to 2.8" [7 cm] long, down hanging coriaceous leaves to 16" [40 cm] long with blue-green metallic shine on adaxial side and very shot scape, less than 1.5 cm long. Fleshy, hardly opening, white, purple speckled flowers are also very distinct from all other species known in Indochina. Even sterile plants are easy recognizable for amazing metallic blue or blue-green shining of adaxial leaf surface." Averyanov 2019
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytotaxa 404 (6): 231–244 Aver. & Vuong 2019 New species of Bulbophyllum (Orchidaceae) in the flora of Vietnam II Drawing/photo fide
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