Habenaria leucotricha Schltr. 1915 SECTION Diphyllae Kraenzl.
Photo courtesy of © Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz
Drawing by © Graham Williamson
Common Name The White Haired Habenaria
Flower Size .85" [2.2 cm cm]
Found in Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia in woodlands often on rocky soils at elevations of 800 to 1200 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with ellipsoid, tomentose tubers giving rise to a hairy stem with a single basal, adpressed to the ground, cordate, silvery green with dark green veining, the upper surface covered with scattered hairs and 2 to 3 bract like leaves that blooms in the summer on an erect, 1.2 to 4" [3 to 10 cm] long, densely 3 to 12 flowered inflorescence with whitish green, densely hairy floral bracts and carrying suberect, frgrant flowers. Due to the features of the spur and the lip this species is very well defined within the haory species section
Distinguished by the light green, white hairy stem carrying white hairy, evergreen leaves with white dots, blooming with white, fragrant flowers with greenish sepals and spur.
Synonyms Habenaria leucotricha var. recticalcar la Croix 1993; Pseudohemipilia leucotricha (Schltr.) Szlach. 2003
References W3 Tropicos,Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 53: 506 Schlechter 1915
Flora of Tropical East Africa Part 1 Summerhayes 1968;
The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing good;
Kew Bull. 48: 361 la Croix 1993 as leucotricha var. recticalcar
Flora Zambesiaca Volume 11 Part one Pope 1998;
Orchidee (Hamburg) 54: 216 Szlach 2003 as Pseudohemipilia leucotricha
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