Habenaria antennifera A.Rich. 1840 SECTION Replicatae Kraenzl.

Plant and Flowers in situ Ethopia

Photos courtesy of © Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Antenna Habenaria [ refers to the antenna-like petals and lip]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen in grassland and open scrub often among rocks at elevations of 2000 to 3300 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing terrestial with a leafy stem carrying 4 to 7, ovate to elliptic-lanceolate leaves that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, 1.8 to 8" [4.5 to 20 cm] long, cylindrical, subdensely many flowered inflorescence with longer than the ovary, ovate-elliptic, glandular-pubescent floral bracts

"One of the most remarkable features of this orchid is the smallness of the upper, outer sepal which is elongated and concave and which moreover is fused at each of its edges with the 2 lateral, inner sepals which are elongated, linear and glandular and more or less united intimately with the upper, outer sepal. these inner sepals give rise, at the anterior and lower part, to a narrow, lanceolate, pointed, fleshy appendage, twice as long as the sepals which are erect, glabroius and smooth on its outer surfac and glandular on its entire inner surface." A Richards 1840

Synonyms [Bilabrella antennifera A. Rich] Szach & Kras. 2009; Habenaria leptobrachiata Ridl. 1886; Habenaria pantothrix Kraenzl. 1893; Habenaria simensis Rchb.f. 1850

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot., sér. 2, 14: 268 A Rich. 1840

Linnaea 22: 859 Rchb.f 1850 as H sinensis;

Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 16: 89 Kraenzl. 1892 as H panthotrix

J. Bot. 24: 293 Ridley 1886 as H leptobrachiata

Kew Bull. 16: 273 Summerhayes 1962

Field Guide to Ethiopian Orchids Demissew, Cribb and Rasmussen 2004 photos fide

Richardiana 9: 158 Szlach. & Kras 2009 as Bilabrella antennifera

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