Home
Terrestrial herb, slender, geophyte, 0.25-0.50 m high; root tubers present; sterile shoots rarely present. Fertile shoots: leaves up to 7, cauline, lower 2 or 3 reduced to basal sheaths, apical leaves almost completely sheathing, grading into floral bracts. Inflorescence a lax cylindrical raceme; flowers 8-18, resupinate, pink tinged white. Sepals 8-12 mm long, median sepal galeate, lateral sepals patent, elliptic to rotund, weakly keeled; spur cylindrical, horizontal at base, gradually decurved at length, 8-15 mm long. Petals erect next to rostellum, ovate to oblanceolate. Lip narrowly lanceolate. Flowering time Jan.-Mar.
Fertile stems 25–50 cm tall; cauline leaves mostly sheathing and 4–6 cm long, 2 leaves with free semi-erect narrowly lanceolate to linear blades up to 12 cm long.
Spur horizontal at the base, at length gradually decurved, slender, 8–13–15 mm long, cylindric from a conical base.
Dorsal sepal galeate; galea erect, 8–12 mm long, 6–10 mm wide and 4–6 mm deep, ovate, acute to obtuse.
Floral bracts as tall as the flowers, narrowly ovate, acuminate, the apices often reflexed.
Terrestrial herb perennating by testicular tubers, rarely with separate sterile shoots.
Flowers borne horizontally, pink, sometimes reddish or purplish, or with purple spots.
Sterile shoots c. 2-leaved; leaves erect, up to 13 cm long, linear-lanceolate, acute.
Lip 6–8 mm long, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, acute.
Inflorescence lax to sub-dense, 6–13 cm long, 8–18-flowered.
Petals 6–9 mm long, narrowly oblong, obliquely acute, erect.
Lateral sepals, 8–13 mm long, elliptic, rotund, acute.
Rostellum lateral lobes parallel, c. 3 mm tall.
Stigma shortly stipitate.
Ovary c. 1.5 cm long.
Anther 3–4 mm long.
