Kylicanthe quintasii (Rolfe) Farminhão, Stévart & Droissart, 2018 Photo by © Tariq Stévart and Phytotaxa 373 (2) © Descourv. Stévart & Droissart 2018 - A New Genus of Angraecoid Orchids and the Research Gate Website

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Common Name or Meaning Quintas' Kylicanthe [honours Francisco Joaquim Dias Quintas, who collected the type. He was a plant collector who made an important contribution to the study of the flora of São Tomé, working there as a correspondent for Júlio Henriques at the University of Coimbra 1900's]

Flower Size .28 to .44" [7 to 11 mm]

Found in São Tomé, Cameroon and Gabon, western Uganda and Angola in primary and secondary forest and plantations at elevations up to 2,000 meters as a mini-miniature sized epiphyte with numerous, basal on the stem, unbranched, greyish roots and a unbranched, pendent to erect, 2.2" [55 mm] long stem carrying less than 10, distichous, narrowly obovate to narrowly elliptic sometimes falcate, tessellated, subcoriaceous, margins entire, apex unequally bilobate, most often with a distinctive notch, lobes obtuse to acute leaves that that blooms in the fall, winter and spring on usually 1 to 3, semi–pendent, emerging at the base of the stem, rachis terete, 1.2 to 12" [3 to 30 cm] long, with up to 20 flowered inflorescence with amplexicaul floral bracts, and carrying resupinate, cream to greenish–orange turning yellowish orange to orange flowers.

"Kylicanthe quintasii is polymorphic in leaf and lip spur shape. Leaves vary greatly from almost linear to oblanceolate, but no geographical pattern can apparently be related to this variation. On the contrary, regarding spur morphology, there are geographically related differences in shape and length among different localities, with plants from São Tomé (including the type specimens) presenting a much more dorsoventrally flattened, curved and often much shorter spur than plants from the mainland. Kylicanthe quintasii (as Diaphananthe quintasii) was put in synonymy of Kylicanthe rohrii (as Diaphananthe rohrii) by Cribb (1989). However, both taxa can easily be distinguished by their divergent floral traits and apparently present non-overlapping distributions: K. quintasii occurs in Central Africa reaching western Uganda to the east and has cream, orange or yellowish-orange flowers with an inconspicuous lip callus at the entrance of the spur, whereas K. rohriii, confined to East Africa but reaching eastern Uganda to the west, has green to yellowish green flowers with a prominent lip callus at the entrance of the spur." Descourv. Stévart & Droissart 2018

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytotaxa 373 (2) © Descourv. Stévart & Droissart 2018 - A New Genus of Angraecoid Orchids Photo fide;

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