Habenaria decurvirostris Summerh. 1942 SECTION Diphyllae Kraenzl.

TYPE Collection sheet by E Milne-Redhead and The Kew Herbarium

LATE

Common Name The Decurved Rostellum Habebaria

Flower Size

Found in Zambia on sandy ground in the open near Cryptosepalum woodlands at elevations around 1400 meters as a small sized, cool growing terrestrial with a globose, ellipsoid, shortly tomentose tuber giving rise to an erect, bracted stem carrying a single basal, adpresssed to the ground, dull green, fleshy, reniform-orbicular, cuspidate-acuminate apically, cordate, amplexicaule base leaf with numerous bract-like, linear-lanceolate, acute, white-green cataphyls ascending the stem that blooms in the late spring on an erect, terminal, 4.4 to 6.4" [11 to 16 cm] long, 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] in diameter, laxly to densely many flowered inflorescence with linear-lanceolate, acute, white-green, shorter than the flowers floral bracts.

"A rather striking little species characterized b ythe single basal leaf, the open inflorescence, the front petal lobe directed downwards and adnate to the lip in the lower part and by the shortly stalked anther in which the canals, instead of being porrect or curved upwards are gently curved downwards." Summerhayes 1942

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Bot. Mus. Leafl. 10: 275 Summerhayes 1942

Flora Zabesuiaca Vol 11 part 1 : 139 Pope 1995;

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