Platanthera stenantha (Hook.f.) Soó 1929
Photo by © Naresh Swami Orchids of Sikkim Himalayas/Memoirs of an Orchid Hunter Website
Photo by © the Chinese Plant Website
Drawing by © Zhang Taili and the Flora of China Vol 25 Illustrations Zhengyi, Raven & Deyuan 2010
EARLIER
Common Name The Slim Flowered Platanthera [Refers to the laterally compressed flower] - In China Tiao Ban She Chun Lan
Flower Size .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm]
Found in the Chinese Himalayas, the eastern Himalayas, Nepal, Yunnan China, and Myanmar in open forests in peaty soils at elevations of 2200 to 3650 meters as a medium sized, cold growing terrestrial with an erect, stout stem with basal acute, tubular sheaths and carrying 3 to 4, distant, oblong-lanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate, acute to subacute, sessile, basally claspeing leaves that blooms in the summer and earler fall on an erect, terminal, glabrous, 4.8 to 9.2" [12 to 23 cm] long, laxly 8 to many flowered inflorescence with linear-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, single veined, basal ones longer than the flowers floral bracts.
"This species has a close general resemblance to P latilabris but the column is quite different, the stigma being single and transverse, the pollinar glands are also very differently shaped." Duthie 1906
Synonyms *Habenaria stenantha Hook.f. 1890; Hemihabenaria stenantha (Hook.f.) Finet 1902; Platanthera stenantha subsp. omeiensis Soó 1929
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Fl. Brit. India 6: 153 Hooker 1890 as habenaria stenantha
Rev. Gén. Bot. 13: 532 Finet 1902 as Hemihabenaria stenantha
* Ann. Hist.-Nat. Mus. Natl. Hung. 26: 363 Soo 1929
The Orchids of Sikkim-Himalaya Part 1: 314 King & Pantling 1898 as Habenaria stenantha
The Orchids of Sikkim-Himalaya Part 1: Pl 412 King & Pantling 1898 as Habenaria stenanthadrawing fide;
The Orchids of North-Western Himalaya Vol IX Part II: 186 Duthie 1906 as Habenaria stenantha;
Indian Orchids: Guide to Identification and Culture Pradhan 1976 drawing fide;
Orchids of Kumaun Himalayas Pangtey, Samant and Rawat 1991;
Orchids of Bhutan Pearce & Cribb 2002;
Orchids of India A Glimpse Misra 2007;
Flora of China Vol 25 Zhengyi, Raven & Deyuan 2009;
Flora of China Vol 25 Illustrations Zhengyi, Raven & Deyuan 2010 drawing fide;
LANKESTERIANA 15(1): 7—50. Jeewan Singh Jalal & J. Jayanthi 2015;
Atlas of Native Orchids of China Vol 1 Jin Xiaohua, Li Jianwu and Ye Deping 2019 photo fide
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