肉兰属 rou lan shu

Authors: Xinqi Chen & Jeffrey J. Wood

Herbs, epiphytic, monopodial. Stems erect, elongate, stout, with many leaves. Leaves distichous, sessile, with sheathing bases; leaf blade flat, thickly leathery to fleshy, jointed to sheath. Inflorescence racemose or paniculate, lateral, axillary, laxly many flowered. Flowers small to medium-sized. Sepals similar, free. Petals smaller; lip adnate at base to column, 3-lobed; lateral lobes erect; mid-lobe recurved, adaxially usually conspicuously wrinkled, base with 2 calli at entrance of spur; spur cylindric. Column small, foot absent; stigma large and round; rostellum short, bilobed; pollinia 4, separate from each other, waxy, subglobose, almost equal in size, with a linear stipe and a small viscidium.

Three species: discontinuously distributed in China, Myanmar, and the Philippines; one species (endemic) in China.

Lower Taxon

• Sarcophyton taiwanianum (Hayata) Garay