Calanthe ventilabrum Rchb.f. 1868 Photo by © Markus Lagerqvist and his P Base Orchid Photo Website.

Common Name The Wind-Blown Lip Calanthe

Flower Size 1/2" [1.25 cm]

Found in the Moluccas, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Santa Cruz and Vanuatu in cloud forests at elevations of 580 to 1700 meters as a medium to just large sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with 4 to 6, plicate, lanceolate, acuminate, gradually narrowing below into the elongate, petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, 13 to 25" [35 to 65 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence with deciduous, lanceolate, acuminate bracts and drooping flowers

The Photo above was taken on Bougainville island which guarantees that it is not C chrysantha as it only occurs in Papua New Guinea.

Synonyms Calanthe bigibba Schltr. 1911; Calanthe chrysantha Schltr. 1905; Calanthe flabelliformis R.S.Rogers 1925; Calanthe langei F.Muell. 1885; Calanthe tunensis J.J.Sm. 1900

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Vanuatu Lewis & Cribb 1989 as C langei; The Orchids of the Solomon Islands and Bougainville Lewis & Cribb 1991 drawing good; A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Cribb & Wood 1994 as C tunensis excluded taxa; Lindleyana Vol 17 No 1 2002; Malesian Orchid Journal Vol 7 2011;

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