Polystachya johnstonii Rolfe 1897 SECTION Affines Kranzlin Photo by © Pieter C. Brouwer and his Nature Photo Website

Inflorescence Photo by © Lourens Grobler

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Common Name Johnston's Polystachya [American Botanist]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Malawi on open, rocky hillsides and mountaintops at elevations of 1600 to 2000 meters as a small sized, cool to warm growing epiphyte on Xerophyta with ovoid, oblong, or almost round yet slightly bilaterally flattened pseudobulbs in dense clumps carrying three, lanceolate, dark glossy green, tinged with dark purple, deciduous leaves that blooms in the fall and spring on a 2" [5 cm] long, few to several [2 to 10] flowered inflorescence arising on new pseudobulbs as the leaves develop.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Malawi La Croix 1983; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Part 2 Pope 1998; African Orchids in the Wild and Cultivation La Croix 1997; Orchid Digest Vol 71 No 3 2007 photo;

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