Vanilla moonii Thwaites 1861

SUBGENUS Xanata SECTION Tethya

Drawing by © Trimen and The Plant Illustrations Website

LATER EARLY

Common Name Moon's Vanilla [

Flower Size 2.4" [6 cm]

Found in Sri Lanka in tropical, wet, evergreen forests at elevations up to 650 meters as a scandent, large sized, hot to warm growing viney epiphyte with a terete, flexuous, deeply channeled stems with aerial roots carrying subsessile, ovate to linear-oblong, obtusely acuminate, fleshy, many veined leaves that blooms in the spring, later summer and early fall on a crowded, stout, short, many flowered inflorescence with short, ovate, subacute floral bracts and carrying large, buff colored flowers with a yellow lip.

"This species has 2 rows of papillae at the apical lobe of the lip, in the way of many other Asian species. The simple raceme, with many (up to 21) flowers on a thick rachis is also characteristic." Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; A Revised Handbook to the Flora of Ceylon Vol 2 Dassanayake & Fosberg 1981 drawing fide; Lankesteriana 9(3): 355-398 Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010

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