肉药兰属 rou yao lan shu

Authors:Authors: Xinqi Chen, Stephan W. Gale & Phillip J. Cribb

Herbs, terrestrial, holomycotrophic. Rhizome tuberous, fusiform to oblong, fleshy, noded, lacking roots. Stem erect, with scalelike or tubular sheaths at nodes, white with violet streaks, leafless, glabrous. Inflorescence terminal, racemose, with a few to many well-spaced flowers; floral bracts lanceolate. Flowers usually pendulous, resupinate, not opening widely, white with violet markings; pedicel and ovary short, conic. Sepals and petals free, connivent, similar, lanceolate; lip similar to petals but wider, entire, concave, margin undulate and incurved, ecallose, with 2 glands at base, not spurred. Column stout, fleshy, lacking a column foot; anther suberect, borne on a broad filament arising from back of column; pollinia 2, clavate, granular-farinaceous, with a long common caudicle and attached to a small common viscidium; stigma exserted, continuous with rostellum. Capsule maturing rapidly.

One species: widespread in SE Asia, extending north to S China and S Japan (Ryukyu Islands) and southeast to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.