Habenaria tentaculigera Rchb.f. 1867 SECTION Kryptostoma Summerhayes

Plant and Flowers in SituPhotos courtesy of © Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz and their Website

Common Name The Tentacle-Carrying Habenaria

Flower Size

Found in Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Angola, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in marshy grasslands, seepage areas amongst rocks and woodlands at elevations of 1000 to 2250 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with ovoid to ellipsoid, woolly tubers giving rise to an erect, leafy stem carrying 5 to 11, the lowest 1 to 2 sheathing, the next few suberect to spreading, lanceolate, acute, the uppermost grading into bract-like leaves that blooms in the spring and summer on an erect, 2 to 10.4" [5 to 26 cm] long, 3 to 17 flowered inflorescence.

Synonyms Habenaria antunesiana Kraenzl. 1900; Habenaria ludens Kraenzl. 1914; Kryptostoma ludens (Kraenzl.) Szlach. 2006; Kryptostoma tentaculigerum (Rchb.f.) Geerinck 1982

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora of Tropical East Africa Part 1 Summerhayes 1968; The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing fide; Flora Zambesiaca Volume 11 Part one Pope 1998;

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