叉喙兰属 cha hui lan shu

Authors:Authors: Xinqi Chen & Jeffrey J. Wood

Herbs, epiphytic, monopodial. Roots not piercing leaf sheaths. Stems usually pendulous, elongate, slender, leafy. Leaves overlapping, distichous, flat, oblong to lanceolate, slightly fleshy, base amplexicaul, sheathing, jointed, apex unequally bilobed or praemorse. Inflorescence axillary, racemose, densely few to many flowered. Flowers thickly textured. Sepals and petals similar, concave; lateral sepals slightly oblique. Petals slightly smaller than sepals; lip funnel-shaped, spurred, 3-lobed, lateral lobes suberect; mid-lobe very small, fleshy, adaxially ± concave; spur long, hooked or curved, inside unornamented. Column terete, bent down over spur entrance, footless; rostellum conspicuous, thick; anther cap conic, apex elongate and narrowed; pollinia waxy, 2, globose, deeply cleft, separated by a hyaline flange, attached by a common long, linear stipe to a large viscidium; stipe wings borne on a ridge formed by basal part of rostellum.

About six species: from tropical Himalayan regions to Indochina and Thailand; two species in China.