ORCHIDACEAE
Smitinandia Holttum, Gard. Bull. Singapore 25: 105 (1969).
By: Lokesh R. Shakya
Taxon Description
Plants monopodial, epiphytic. Stem elongated, leafy. Leaves coriaceous, sessile, distichous, linear-oblong, apex blunt, slightly 2-lobed. Inflorescence lateral, racemose, many-flowered, not exceeding the leaves. Flowers small, fleshy, resupinate. Sepals subequal, broadly ovate. Petals smaller and narrow. Lip firmly joined to the column, 3-lobed, spurred, midlobe tongue-shaped, at base with transverse ridge closing the entrance of the short saccate spur, lateral lobes smaller, erect. Column short, without distinct foot, pollinia 4, solid, divided into unequal halves, on heart-shaped stipe with large gland, viscidium ovate.
Taxon Statistics
Worldwide about 3 species, distributed in Himalaya to China and Malesia. One species in Nepal.
1. Smitinandia micrantha (Lindl.) Holttum, Gard. Bull. Singapore 25: 106 (1969).
Saccolabium micranthum Lindl., Gen. Sp. Orchid. Pl.: 220 (1833).
Plants 24 cm tall. Stem suberect, stout, slightly compressed, leafy, older portion covered by dry leaf sheaths, internodes ca. 1 cm, roots arising from nodes. Leaves sessile, oblong, 6–10 X 1.5 cm, apex obliquely truncate, unequally 2-lobed. Inflorescence 8–9 cm, equalling longest leaf, leaf-opposed, stout, many-flowered. Fertile bracts small, broadly triangular, 1.5 X 1.5 mm. Flowers sepals and petals white with pink spots, lip pink purple, 5 mm across. Pedicel and ovary ca. 2 mm. Sepals subsimilar. Dorsal sepalbroadly ovate, ca. 2 X 1.75 mm, obtuse. Lateral sepals slightly oblique, broadly ovate, 2 X 2 mm, obtuse. Petals spreading, oblong, ca. 2 X 0.5 mm, margin slightly scabrous. Lip ca. 4 mm, subquadrate, mid-lobe obovate-spathulate, base with white calli near spur entrance, fleshy, lateral lobes erect, spur 2 mm, adpressed to? and as long as ovary, oblong, obtuse. Column ca 1.25 mm, with two appendages on either side of the rostellum.
Distribution: Nepal, W Himalaya, E Himalaya, Assam-Burma.
Altitudinal range: 800–1000 m.
Ecology: Epiphytic on Bauhinia.
Flowering: March — May.