山柰 shan nai

Rhizomes pale green or greenish white inside, tuberous, fragrant. Leaves usually 2, spreading flat on ground, subsessile; leaf sheath 2--3 cm; leaf blade green, orbicular, 7--20 × 3--17 cm, glabrous on both surfaces or villous abaxially, margin usually white, apex mucronate or acute. Inflorescences terminal on pseudostems, enclosed by imbricate leaf sheaths, sessile, few to many flowered; bracts lanceolate, ca. 2.5 cm. Calyx equaling bracts. Corolla tube 2--2.5 cm; lobes white, linear, ca. 1.2 cm. Lateral staminodes obovate-cuneate, ca. 1.2 cm. Labellum ca. 2.5 × 2 cm, apex slightly 2-lobed or deeply 2-cleft; lobes white with purple markings at base. Anther sessile; connective appendage strongly reflexed, rectangular, 2-lobed. Fl. Aug--Sep.

Open areas. Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan, Yunnan [?Cambodia, India; widely cultivated in SE Asia].