Habenaria elwesii Hook.f. 1896
SECTION Commelynifoliae Kraenzl 1893
Plant and Flowers in situ India
Photos © Courtesy of The Orchid Society of Karnataka Website
Drawing by © Matilda Smith, John Fitch and J D Hooker
LATE
EARLY
Common Name Elwes' Habenaria [British Botanist and Orchid Collector 1800's - early 1900's]
Flower Size 1.28" [3.2 cm long]
Found in southern India on grassy slopes at forests edges at elevations around 900 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing terrestrial with a hairy tuber giving rise to an erect, slender, stem carrying lower-most reduced to sheaths, becoming above towards the middle, 3 to 6, alternate, lanceolate to oblong, acute, cuspidate basally clasping leaves that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, 3.2 to 8" [8 to 20 cm] long, laxly 10 to 12 flowered inflorescence with foliaceous, cymbiform, erect, longer than the ovary, broadly ovate-lanceolate, abruptly acuminate, finely purberulous along the margin, reticulate veining floral bracts carrying sessile flowers
Synonyms Ate elwesii (Hook.f.) Szlach. 2005
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Atlas des Orchidees Cultivees Constantin 1920 drawing fide; Orchids of Nilgris Joseph 1987 drawing fide; Orchids of India A Glimpse Misra 2007; Lankesteriana Vol 18 [1]: 23–62 Jalal & Jayanth 2018; Orchids of Maharashtra Jalal 2018;
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