Tridactyle tridactylites (Rolfe) Schltr. 1918
Plant and Flower in situ Zimbabwe Photo by Bart Wursten ©, and his Flora Of Zimbabwe WebSite
LATE
EARLY
Common Name The Three Fingered Tridactyle
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Islands, Rwanda, Zaire, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe in evergreen and or riverine forests at elevations of 900 to 1800 meters on trunks and lower branches of trees or lithophyte on rocks as a giant sized, warm growing epiphyte with an elongate, erect to trailing stem carrying distichous, in the apical third, linear to strap-shaped, unequally bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the late spring and early summer on several to many arising along the stem, 1 to 2" [2.5 to 5 cm] long, 10 to 16 flowered, racemose inflorescence.
Synonyms Aeranthes diesteliana Kraenzl. 1902; Angraecum kindtianum (De Wild.) De Wild. 1906; *Angraecum tridactylites Rolfe 1888; Listrostachys kindtiana De Wild. 1903; Mystacidium ledermannianum Kraenzl. 1914; Tridactyle kindtiana (De Wild.) Schltr. 1918; Tridactyle ledermanniana (Kraenzl.) Schltr. 1918
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing/photo fide; Malawi Orchids La Croix 1983; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas # 48-49 Vandeae 1986 photo fide; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 3 Cribb 1989; African Orchids in the Wild and Cultivation La Croix 1997; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Part 2 Pope 1998;
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