Orchidaceae

Sobralia

Representative Image
Representative image.

Kingdom: Plantae Rank: Genus Parent: Orchidaceae Status: Valid

Morphological Description

Diagnosis: The plants range from short, roadside species (S. crocea) to more typically large, almost shrub-like plants more than a meter tall. The plicate ##

Vegetative Morphology

Habit: Medium to large caespitose terrestrials, lithophytes or rarely epiphytes.

Main axis: Stems erect, leafy, usually unbranched.

Leaves: Leaves one to many, elliptic to lanceolate, rarely linear, sessile, acute-acuminate, pleated, often clustered toward the stem apex.

Reproductive Morphology

Inflorescence: Inflorescences terminal racemes, occasionally axillary in the upper leaf axils, sessile or pedunculate, often successively one-flowered.

Flowers: Flowers membranous, usually ephemeral, often gregarious. Sepals and petals free, spreading, the petals ofen wider than the sepals. Lip unlobed to three-lobed, usually tubular at the base, often with undulate margins, the callus absent or present, variable, usually of a pair of short basal keels and low linear parallel longitudinal keels or ridges, the keels often toothed or fimbriate. Column club-shaped, winged with the wings embracing the column apex, without a foot; pollinia 8, soft, sessile on a large common viscidium.