香荚兰属 xiang jia lan shu

Authors:Authors: Xinqi Chen & Phillip J. Cribb

Vines, climbing, herbaceous, to several meters long. Stem with an aerial root and a leaf at each node. Leaves large, fleshy, shortly petiolate [sometimes reduced to scales outside Flora area]. Racemes axillary, several to many flowered. Flowers resupinate, often large, often with an abscission layer between ovary and perianth. Sepals and petals similar, free, spreading. Lip often joined to sides of column with its basal margin, sometimes almost to top of column and ± trumpet-shaped, free part often dilated, spurless, sometimes 3-lobed, disk often with hairy appendages adaxially. Column long, slender, slightly curved near top; anther inserted pointing downward; pollinia 2 or 4, granular-farinaceous or loosely granular, without caudicle or viscidium; rostellum often broad, below anther. Fruit cylindric, fleshy, often indehiscent. Seeds with stout testa, often black, wingless.

About 70 species: throughout the tropics; four species (two endemic) in China; one additional species (endemic) is incompletely known.