Oberonia orbicularis Hook.f. 1888 Drawing by © Hooker and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Orbicular Oberonia

Flower Size small

Found in the eastern Himalayas and Thailand at elevations around 800 to 1200 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with a very short stem enveloped completely by imbricating leaf sheath bases carrying gradually narrowing from the base to the tip, ensiform, acuminate, fleshy, dark green leaves that blooms in the fall on an erect, cylindric, adnate to the apical leaf, densely many flowered inflorescence carrying greenish yellow to orange, sessile flowers imbedded in cavities on the axis.

CAUTION Many references put this species as a synonym of O obcordata but Kew has them separate and going by the drawings they are quite different. This species is close to O pachyrachis but it differs in the shorter, broader bracts and the much narrower petals, but it may prove to be conspecific, if so then this one takes precedence

Synonyms Iridorkis orbicularis (Hook.f.) Kuntze 1891

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; A Century Of Indian Orchids Hooker 1895 drawing fide; The Orchids of Thailand Seidenfaden & Smitinand 1959; The Orchids of Thailand Seidenfaden & Smitinand 1965 corrections; Orchid Monographs Vol 4 Ansari & Balakrishnan 1990; The Orchids of Thailand Seidenfaden & Smitnand 1959

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