''Acanthophippium'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowerin ...

with thirteen

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

(family

Orchidaceae Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

). The name of this genus is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

words ''acanthos'' ("spiny") and ''ephippion'' ("saddle"), referring to the saddle-like labellum of the plants. This

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

and sometimes

myco-heterotrophic Myco-heterotrophy (from Greek μύκης , "fungus", ἕτερος ', "another", "different" and τροφή ', "nutrition") is a symbiotic relationship between certain kinds of plants and fungi, in which the plant gets all or part of its food fro ...

genus of

sympodial Sympodial growth is a bifurcating branching pattern where one branch develops more strongly than the other, resulting in the stronger branches forming the primary shoot and the weaker branches appearing laterally. A sympodium, also referred to a ...

orchids is distributed from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, China, Japan,

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and the southwest

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

. The terrestrial species are up to 80 cm tall. They have short rhizomes. The oblong and fleshy

pseudobulb The pseudobulb is a storage organ found in many epiphytic and terrestrial sympodial orchids. It is derived from a thickening of the part of a stem between leaf nodes and may be composed of just one internode or several, termed heteroblastic and ...

s are up to 25 cm tall. They produce at their apex 2 to 3 large plicate,

lanceolate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular ...

, parallel-veined leaves, which can be up to 65 cm long.Thomas, S.A. 1997 - Taxonomic revision of the genus Acanthephippium (Orchidaceae). Orchid Monographs, Vol. 8, pp. 119–134, 178-179, 236-246, figures 56-66, plates 5c-6d. Rijksherbarium / Hortus Botanicus, Leiden, The Netherlands. The erect

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

arises laterally from the pseudobulbs, with 3 to 6 flowers, subtended by large,

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

bracts. The flowers are prominent, large, striated cup- or urn-shaped, fleshy, waxy, and about 4 cm long. They resemble a

tulip Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...

, a most unusual shape for an orchid. The flowers have a wide range of colors, from dull yellow to red to shades of orange and pink, marked with stripes or spots. The blossoms are usually odiferous with a very strong fragrance. This genus is allied to genera '' Calanthe'', '' Cephalantheropsis'', ''

Phaius ''Phaius'', commonly known as swamp orchids or in Chinese as 鶴頂蘭屬/鹤顶兰属 (he ding lan shu), is a genus of forty-five species of flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. They are evergreen, terrestrial herbs which form c ...

'', and '' Spathoglottis''.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Acanthophippium'' was first described by

Carl Ludwig Blume Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume (9 June 1796, Braunschweig – 3 February 1862, Leiden) was a German- Dutch botanist. He was born at Braunschweig in Germany, but studied at Leiden University and spent his professional life wor ...

in 1825. He used the spelling with an "o". Many sources have since spelt the name "''Acanthephippium''" (i.e. with an "e"). This is regarded as an orthographic variant by the

International Plant Names Index The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It inclu ...

. The original spelling is used by sources such as the

World Checklist of Selected Plant Families The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (usually abbreviated to WCSP) is an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected pla ...

Species

# '' Acanthophippium bicolor'' (S. India, Sri Lanka, New Guinea). # '' Acanthophippium chrysoglossum'' (W. Sumatra). # '' Acanthophippium curtisii'' (Borneo - Sarawak). # '' Acanthophippium eburneum'' (N. Sumatra, Borneo - Sarawak). # '' Acanthophippium gougahensis'' (Thailand, Vietnam). # '' Acanthophippium javanicum'' (W. Malaysia, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, New Guinea). (type species; commonly grown) # '' Acanthophippium lilacinum'' (N. Borneo). # '' Acanthophippium mantinianum'' (Philippines) (commonly grown) # '' Acanthophippium parviflorum'' (Vietnam, S. Sumatra to Java). # '' Acanthophippium sinense'' (China) # '' Acanthophippium splendidum'' (Sulawesi to SW. Pacific, New Guinea). # '' Acanthophippium striatum'' (E. Himalaya to Java). (commonly grown) # '' Acanthophippium sylhetense'' (Sikkim to Philippines)

References

External links

* *
American Orchid Society, ''Acanthephippium mantinianum'' L.Linden & Cogn.Orchid Cambodia, ''Acanthephippium gouhahensis''Papua New Guinea Orchids, ''Acanthephippium'' Swiss Orchid Foundation at Herbarium Jany Renz, ''Acanthephippium gougahensis'' (Guillaumin) Seidenf.
Collabieae genera Paleotropical flora Taxa named by Carl Ludwig Blume {{Epidendroideae-stub