Bristly anoectochilus

Description

Anoectochilus, commonly known as marbled jewel orchids or filigree orchids, is a genus of about fifty species in the orchid family Orchidaceae. They are terrestrial herbs with a creeping rhizome, an upright flowering stem and dark coloured leaves with contrasting veins. The flowers are relatively large and have a large labellum, markedly different from the sepals and petals.Orchids in the genus Anoectochilus are terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, sympodial herbs with a creeping, above-ground rhizome with wiry roots that look woolly. The leaves are arranged in a rosette and are relatively broad and thin. They are dark green or brownish purple and have a contrasting network of silvery or reddish veins. The flowers are relatively large, hairy, velvety, resupinate and arranged in a short spike. The dorsal sepal and petals overlap to form a hood over the column with the lateral sepals spreading apart from each other. The labellum is relatively large with two sections - an upper "epichile" and lower "hypochile" separated by a narrow section. The hypochile has a cylinder-shaped spur containing two large glands and is joined to the epichile with a "claw" that has spreading teeth or a long fringe. The fruit is a hairy capsule containing a large number of winged seeds.The genus Anoectochilus was first formally described in 1825 by Carl Ludwig Blume and Anoectochilus setaceus was the first species he described, hence it is the type species.The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek words anoiktos meaning "opened" and cheilos meaning "lip". Found in the eastern Himalayas, Assam, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, western Himalayas, Bhutan, Thailand, Laos, Yunnan province of China, Vietnam, Java and Sumatra in shady broadleafed, evergreen, humid primary forests in soils dampened by mists and splash along steep watercourses at elevations of 300 to 1800 meters as a miniature to small sized, hot to cool growing terrestrial orchid in rich humus in damp crevasses with subcordate to ovate-acute, velvety, dark lime-green reticulated with gold leaves that are purple black on the underside that blooms in the fall on an erect, peduncle 2.8 to 6" (7 to 15 cm) long, provided with 2 to 3 pinkish, sterile bracts, glandular-pubescent, 8" (20 cm) long, 2 to 10 (rarely single) flowered inflorescence with pinkish, ovate, 1 to 3 veined, glandular pubescent dorsally, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate flowers.