Orchidaceae
Bletia
Kingdom: Plantae Rank: Genus Parent: Orchidaceae Status: Valid
Morphological Description
Diagnosis:
Plants of Bletia inhabit disturbed, high light habitats such as roadsides and fully deforested hillsides that have converted to grasslands. They typically form colonies. Erect lanceolate leaves arise from corms. Erect long pedunculate racemes bear showy rose-magenta flowers with several open at a time.
1 Flowers campanulate, often self-pollinating; petals less
than 2 cm wide. ........................... B. campanulata
1’ Flowers opening flat, never self-pollinating; petals more
than 2 cm wide. ............................ B. catenulata
Vegetative Morphology
Habit: Terrestrials arising from subterranean corms.
Leaves: Leaves plicate, lanceolate, acuminate, subpetiolate with the bases forming a false stem.
Reproductive Morphology
Inflorescence: Inflorescences terminal racemes or panicles, erect to suberect-arching, the floral bracts inconspicuous.
Flowers: Flowers cupped, pink to reddish-purple. Sepals and petals free, spreading, usually subsimilar and subequal. Lip three-lobed, sessile, the lateral lobes erect, the midlobe usually with undulate margins, the callus of longitudinal, parallel, usually undulate keels. Column arching, club-shaped; pollinia 8, on minute caudicles.