Polystachya caudata Summerh. 1947 publ. 1948 SECTION Isochilloideae Summerhayes

Collection sheet and Drawings by © Summerhayes and the Kew's Plants of the World Website

Common Name The Caudate Polystachya

Flower Size

Found in Tanzania at elevations around 1000 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to coool growing epiphyte with close set, erect, thicker basally, slender above, onnic-ovoid pseudobulbs carrying 3 to 4, suberect, linear, obtuse to unequally bilobulate, brownish green leaves that blooms in the spring on a more or less erect, racemose to few racemes, secondarily composed, 2.8 to 9.6" [7 to 24 cm] long overall, peduncle 1.6 to 6" [4 to 15 cm] long, completely covered by narrow, grayish sheaths; branches up to 4, .6 to 1.8" [1.5 to 4.5 cm] long, rachis terete, pubescent, several flowered inflorescence with patent or suborbicular, as long as ther ovary floral bracts and carrying frargrant, white to cream colored flowers with a redish spotted lip.

This species, which is clearly a close relative of P isochilloides may be most easily distinguished from other species of the section by the remarkable bracts which for a very broad base are suddenly narrowed to form a long tail-like apex. The branches of the inflorescence, as in P mauritania and other species, are all turned to one side of the main axis. The peduncle is covered with close fitting scarious sheaths while the bracts subtending the branch racemes are similar and partly cover the main rachis. The clavate or subcapitatte hairs, so characteristic for the section, thickly cover the callus of the lip and claw and occur less thick on the basess and cenmters of the lobe istic of the section, cover thickly the lip callus thickly on the bases and centers of the lobe." Summerhayes 1947/8

Synonyms Isochilostachya caudata (Summerh.) Mytnik & Szlach. 2011

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Kew Bull. 2: 124 Summerhayes 1947 publ. 1948

Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 2: 379 Cribb 1984

Acta Soc. Bot. Poloniae 80: 80 Mytnik & Szlach. 2011 as Isochilostachya caudata

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