Dendrochilum imitator J.J. Wood 1994 SUBGENUS Platyclinis SECTION Platyclinis

TYPE Drawing by © J J Wood & Susanna Stuart-Smith

Common Name The Imitating Dendrochilum [refers to this species being very similar to D lacteum]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Sabah & Sarawak Borneo on tree trunks in dry and rather low ridge forests and on branches overhanging water courses at elevations of 1300 to 1500 meters as a small to medium sized, cool growing epiphyte with a pendulous, branching rhizome giving rise to crowded, narrowly cylindrical, to narrowly fusiform pseudobulbs carrying a single, apical, thin textured, 5 nerved, narrowly elliptic, acute, sulcate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring, summer and fall on a pendulous, peduncle filiform, 1.8 to 3.6" [4.5 to 9 cm] long, provided with 1 to 2, ovate, acute bracts, rachis quadrangular, slightly fractiflex, salmon pink, 1 to 4.2" [2.5 to 10.5 cm] long, laxly 6 to 20 flowered inflorescence with ovate, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying pale green, dull pale greenish brown to reddish tan flowers with a white lip with a large central brownish blotch or with yellow brown keels tha median keel pale green and the column cream.

"D imitator is distinguished from D lacteum by the more pronounced spotted catyphyls, floral bracts shorter that the ovary, smaller flowers witha longer pedicel with ovary, shorter and narrower, acute rather than acuminate tepals, reflexed lateral sepals, shorter labellum witha much more pronounced median keel and bifid stelida.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Wood & Cribb 1994 Drawing fide; Orchids of Borneo Vol 3 Wood 1997 drawing fide; Orchids of Sarawak Beaman & Wood etal 2001; Dendrochilum of Borneo Wood 2001 drawing fide; The Orchids of Mount Kinabalu Vol 1 Wood, Beaman, Lamb, Chu Lun and Beaman 2011 drawing fide; The Orchids of Mount Kinabalu Vol 2 Wood, Beaman, Lamb, Chu Lun and Beaman 2011

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