斑唇盔花兰 ban chun kui hua lan

Orchis wardii W. W. Smith, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 13: 215. 1921.

Plants 12-25 cm tall. Rhizome stout, fleshy. Stem stout, with 2 or 3 tubular sheaths at base, 2-leaved. Leaves green, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, 7-15 × 2.5-4.5 cm, thickly textured, base gradually attenuate into a conduplicate sheath, apex obtuse-rounded or mucronate. Inflorescence 3.5-8 cm, stout, 2-3 mm in diam.; rachis to 3 cm, 5- to more than 10-flowered; floral bracts lanceolate, basal ones to 3.5 cm, much longer than flowers, apex acuminate. Flowers spreading, whitish pink to purple, spotted with dark purple, relatively large; ovary cylindric, 10-12 mm including pedicel. Sepals pinkish purple, inner surfaces spotted with purple, subequal in length, 8-9 × 3-3.5 mm, 3-veined; dorsal sepal erect, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, apex obtuse; lateral sepals spreading horizontally or reflexed, falcate to narrowly ovate-lanceolate, apex slightly obtuse. Petals erect, forming a hood with dorsal sepal, pinkish purple spotted with deep purple, ovate-lanceolate, ca. 7 × 2.5 mm, 3-veined; lip simple, spreading, pinkish purple spotted with deep purple to purplish black, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 8-9 × 8-9 mm, longer than petals, base contracted, spurred, margin strongly erose and wrinkled, apex obtuse-rounded; spur pendulous, cylindric, slightly curved forward, 7-10 mm, almost as long as ovary, slender, apex obtuse. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

● Forests, alpine meadows; 2400-4500 m. W Sichuan, E Xizang, NW Yunnan.