Tridactyle truncatiloba Summerh. 1948Photo by © P Obame

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Common Name The Cut Off Lobe Tridactyle [refers to the lobes of the lip]

Flower Size 1/2" [1.25 cm]

Found in Gabon as a small to large sized, hot to warm growing lithophyte with an erect to straggling, leafy towards the apex stem carrying strap-shaped, obtusely bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the summer on a mostly below the leaves, 4 to 4.8" [10 to 12 cm] long, 7 to 10 flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying strongly sweetly scented, white flowers

Apart from the size of the flowers, which are the largest in the genus, the shape of the lateral lobes of the lip is remarkable. Instead of running out into a single point or being divided into a number of narrow fimbriae, the lobe wi widens from the base and is then transversely truncate, the outer margin only being continued as a single fimbia or tail, the fimbiae along the truncate edge remaining short and blunt as if bitten off and the inner angle terminating in a short point directed towards the middle lobe. The only other species with a lip at all similar is T tricuspis and T furcistipes. Thus feature is also developed to a less extent in T gentilii which is apparently the nearest ally of the p[resent species. IN T gentilii however the floral structure is very similar to that of T bicaudata except that the flowers are much larger and have a spur 1.4 to 2" [ 3.5 to 5 cm] long."

Synonyms

*References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Kew Bull. 3: 297 Summerhayes 1948 African Orchids in the Wild and Cultvation La Croix 1997 drawing/photo fide; Angraecoid Orchids Stewart, Hermans and Campbell 2006 photo fide

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