Polystachya calluniflora Kraenzl. 1900 SECTION Calluniflorae Kraenzl.

Inflorescence and Plant in situ Cameroon Photos by Vincent Droissart and His West African Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Moon-Shaped Lip Callus Polystachya

Flower Size .25" [6mm]

Found in Nigeria, Gulf of Guinea Islands, Cameroon, Gabon, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia in upland forests at elevations of 1300 to 2200 as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with superposed, fusiform psuedobulbs envelopped basally in youth by 2 to 3 scariuous sheaths and carrying 2 apical, linear, grass-like, acute leaves that blooms in the fall on an erect, cylindrical, [4 to 10 cm] long, racemose, to 15 flowered inflorescence subtended by 1 to 2, long, compressed, acuminate bracts with the uppermost enveloping the basal flowers.

Synonyms Polystachya calluniflora var. hologlossa P.J.Cribb & la Croix 1991; Polystachya hologlossa (P.J.Cribb & la Croix) Szlach. & Olszewski 2001; Polystachya trigonochila Kraenzl. 1901

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora Of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 2 Cribb 1984; African Orchid in Cultivation and the Wild La Croix 1997; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Part 2 Pope 1998

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