毛舌兰属 mao she lan shu

Authors:Authors: Xinqi Chen & Jeffrey J. Wood

Herbs, epiphytic, climbing, monopodial. Stems pendulous or climbing, short or long, slender, internodes elongated, with few to many nodes. Leaves many, distichous, linear to elliptic, slightly fleshy or leathery, base sheathing and jointed, apex usually unequally bilobed. Inflorescences lateral, axillary, several to many or rarely solitary, peduncle very short, 1- to several flowered, often more than 1 per node. Flowers lasting ca. 1 week, resupinate, opening widely, usually yellowish with light brown or purple markings, rather small. Sepals and petals free. Petals slightly smaller than sepals; lip immovable, spurred or saccate at base, 3-lobed; lateral lobes erect; mid-lobe sometimes 3-lobed, often hairy or papillate; sac or spur often thickened, with a hairy ligulate appendage on back wall just below base of column. Column short and stout, without a foot, often with small roughly hairy stelidia; rostellum short; pollinia waxy, 4, appearing as 2 unequal masses, attached by a common linear-oblong stipe to a small, ovate or elliptic viscidium.

About 55-60 species: India (Nicobar Islands) and Sri Lanka east to New Guinea, Australia and the Solomon Islands, north to S China, with the center of diversity in Indonesia and the Philippines; two species (one endemic) in China.