124. Dendrolirium Blume, Bijdr. 343. 1825.
绒兰属 rong lan shu
Authors: Xinqi Chen, Yi-Bo Luo & Jeffrey J. Wood
Herbs, epiphytic, lithophytic, or rarely terrestrial. Rhizome stout, long and creeping, or short, with sheaths along its length. Stems usually pseudobulbous, with a few leaves toward apex, covered by persistent sheathing leaf bases. Leaves distichous, conduplicate, narrowly elliptic, leathery, leaf base tapering below to form a petiole before emerging with leaf sheath that tightly envelops stem. Inflorescences lateral or subterminal, erect, borne from base of pseudobulb or slender stem, with a few medium-sized flowers, peduncle glabrous to densely pubescent; base of inflorescence in some species covered by persistent leaf scales and never developing into a pseudobulb; floral bracts sometimes brightly colored orange or yellow and more conspicuous than flowers. Flowers rather dull in color, usually brownish or greenish yellow. Sepals glabrous, villous or densely stellate-pubescent abaxially; lateral sepals obliquely ovate, base attached to column foot to form an obliquely conic mentum. Petals free, lanceolate to oblanceolate, shorter and smaller than sepals; lip 3-lobed or obscurely 3-lobed, adorned with ridges or a thickened tissue at base of mid-lobe forming a somewhat globose wart. Column short, foot incurved, ca. as long as or shorter than column proper; pollinia 8, equal in size, laterally compressed, clavate, attached to lamellae of caudicles at base.
About 12 species: Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; two species in China.
Eria lanigera Seidenfaden (Opera Bot. 114: 177. 1992), described from Vietnam, was recently recorded from SW Yunnan (Menglian) by X. H. Jin and S. C. Chen (Acta Bot. Yunnan. 29: 170. 2007). J. J. Wood notes that this is in fact a species of Dendrolirium, although the relevant new combination has yet to be published.
