Polystachya hastata Summerh. 1953 SECTION Calluniflorae Kraenzl.

Photo by © Karl Senghas and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Spearhead Polystachya

Flower Size

Found in Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire, and Uganda in rainforests at elevations of 1300 to 1800 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with caespitose or superposed, each arising from just below the middle of the older, narrowly cylindrical-fusiform pseduobulbs carrying 2, apical, grasslike, erect, linear, acutely, minutely bilobed apically, chartaceous leaves that blooms in the summer on a suberect, terminal, [4.5 to 5 cm] long, subdensely 10 to 20 flowered inflorescence subtended by a compressed, paleaceous, acute sheath and has linear-lanceolate, acuminate floral bracts and carrying erect-spreading, glabrous flowers.

"The present species and P. calluniflora are members of sect. Callunflorae which have develo0ped this speciesl type of habit to a limited extent. P. hastata can be distinguished from its ally by the prominent mentum to the flowers, with which is associated the long claw and relatively short lamina of the labellum. In P. calluniflora the claw is extremely short and the lamina correspondingly elongated. In general appearance the two species are very similar." Summerhayes 1953

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Kew Bull. 8: 134 Summerhayes 1953

Orchids of East Africa Piers 1968;

Flora of Tropical East Africa Vol 11 Orchidaceae Part 2 Cribb 1984;

African Orchid in Cultivation and the Wild La Croix 1997;

Orchidaceae of West Central Africa Vol 2 Szlachetko etal 2015 drawing fide

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