Polystachya pachychila Summerh. 1953 SECTION Cultriformes Kraenzl.

Inflorescence Photos by © The Orchid Nord Website

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Common Name The Broad Leafed Polystachya

Flower Size

Found in Zaire, Rwanda and Kenya at elevations around 1800 to 2300 meters as a mini-miniature to small sized, cool growing epiphyte with clustered, narrowly cylindrical, dark green pseudobulbs carrying a single, elliptic to ovate, obtuse, basally auriculate leaf that blooms in the later summer on a terminal, sparsely hairy, branched, 1.6 to 6" [4 to 15 cm] long, successively several to 60 flowered inflorescence with inconspicuous bracts.

"This rather striking species is evidently an ally of the widespread P. cultriformis . It may be recognised readily by the narrowly elliptical leaves which do not widen upwards as in P. cultriformis and which are rounded instead of acute at the apex. The labellum is very different from that of P. cultriformis, being much more distinctly three-lobed and quite fleshy. The very fleshy side-lobes end in an acute free end at about a right angle to the middle lobe, which is long and relatively narrow with a more or less truncate apex." Summerhayes 1953

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Kew Bull. 8: 139 Summerhayes 1953 Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 2 Cribb 1984; Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 23 1393 - 1456 Brieger 1990; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996; Orchidaceae of West Central Africa Vol 2 Szlach. etal 2015 drawing good;

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