Cheirostylis lepida (Rchb.f.) Rolfe 1897 photo courtesy of © The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Full shade Warm LATE Winter EARLY Spring

Common Name The Beautiful Cheirostylis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, The Gulf of Guinea Islands, Cameroon, Zaire, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania in dense shade on the damp forest floor in leaf mould and litter at elevations around 900 meters as a small sized, warm growing terrestrial with a basally creeping stem carrying thin, ovate, acute, rounded to slightly cordate basally into the petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a terminal, erect, dense, to 20 small flowered inflorescence with glabrous, slightly longer than the hairy ovary.

Synonyms *Monochilus lepidus Rchb.f. 1881

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 32 # 10 1963; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 2 Cribb 1984 drawing fide; Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996;

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