Habenaria magnirostris Summerh.1960 SECTION Pentaceras
Photos © by Nicholas Wightman and The Flora of Mozambique Website
Drawing © by Margaret Stones
Common Name The Large Beaked Habenaria
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Zaire, Tanzania, Angola, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in wet dambos and boggy grasslands at elevations of 1450 to 1650 meters as a medium sized, cool growing terrestrial with a globose tuber giving rise to an erect, leafy stem enveloped completely by leaf sheath bases carrying about 6, the 2 lowermost sheth-like, the uppermost 2 bractlike, the rest semi-erect, lanceolate to linearacute rather fleshy leaves that blooms in the late spring and early summer on an erect, terminal, 1.6 to 6.8" [4 to 17 cm] long, 2 to 20 flowered inflorescence with glabrous, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying green to yellow-green flowers.
H magniriostris is easily identified by its massive rostellum middle lobe produced on the front of the anther.
" H magnirostris and H richardsiae, combine in their general features the two sections Chlorinae and Pentaceras. H magnirostris has bipartite petals but the floral structure and vegetative characters are very similar to those of species like H filicornis. From the other species of sect. Pentaceras, in which section it is best placed on account of the bipartite petals and clavate not capitate stigmas, it also differs in the general leaf arrangment. In most species of this section the lower part of the stem bears sheaths only, the foliage leaves being borne in the middle of the stem up to the base of the inflorescence. H richardsiae, on the other hand, has 2 sheaths close together at the base of the stem and immediately above these are 2 to 3 floiage leaves which are thus almost basal in position. The upper part of the stem bears a number of much smaller bract-like leaves or sheaths. H richardsiae also differs in the rounded apex of the spur that is not obtuse or bilobed, the rostellum intermediate lobe is dentiform and is hidden between the anther lcules and the anther canals are three times shorter." Summerhayes 1960
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Kew Bull. 14: 132 Summerhayes 1960
Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 1 Summerhayes 1968;
The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing fide;
Flore D'Afrique Centrale [Zaire- Rwands - Burundi] Orhidaceae Premeir parte Geerink 1984 drawing fide;
Flora of Zambia Vol 11 Part 1 Pope 1995 drawing fide;
Orchidaceae of West Central Africa Vol 1: 155 Szlatchecko etal 2010 drawing fide
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