The New Refugium Botanicum. Angraecum sesquipedale

Abstract

Angraecum sesquipedaleThouars, Histoire Particulière des Plantes Orchidées (Hist. Orchid.), pl. 66 & 67. 1822. TYPE: Madagascar, without specific locality, 1798, L. M. A.-A. du Petit-Thouars s.n.; lectotype, designated by Du Puy et al. (1999), plates 66 and 67 of Hist. Orch. A large, epiphytic, lithophytic or semiterrestrial, monopodial, erect herb to over 60 cm tall. Roots flexuous, glabrous, thick, to 8 mm in diameter, produced from the base of the node subopposite to the leaf on the lower part of the stem. Stem slightly flattened, to 12 mm wide, completely covered by the conduplicate, subancipitous, tightly clasping leaf sheaths, the oldest ones becoming brownpapyraceous. Leaves articulate with the sheaths, coriaceous, dark green, detaching when old, ligulate, irregularly bilobed at apex, 10–30 × 1.4–2.7 cm. Inflorescence produced laterally from the stem and emerging from the axil of one of the upper sheaths, a lateral, 1- (Ang. sesquipedale var. angustifolium) to few-flowered (no more than six), arched to gently pendent, successive or simultaneously flowering raceme 25–30 cm long including the peduncle; peduncle terete, green, 10–12 cm long, with 2–3 triangular, cucullate, hyaline bracts becoming brownish with age, ca. 1 cm long.