Orchid Information - Genus Bulbophyllum section Pedilochilus

Bulbophyllum section Pedilochilus (Schltr.) J.J.Verm. & O'Byrne, Bulbophyllum of Sulawesi ((2011) 199. Type species: Bulbophyllum papuanum Schltr.

Synonyms:

• Genus Pedilochilus Schltr. in K.Schum. & Lauterb., Nachtr. Fl. Deutsch. Schutzgeb. Südsee (1905) 218

Small to medium-sized sympodial epiphytes, lithopytes or terrestrials. Rhizomes (short-)creeping; rhizome bracts thin, surface glabrous to colliculate, caducous, sometimes weathering in a woolly mass. Roots sprouting from nodes along the entire rhizome, spreading, glabrous to finely hirsute, coarsely and sparsely hirsute in some species. Pseudobulbs 1-leaved, with the shoots sprouting at its basal node and free or fused to the pseudobulb over up to c. 1/2 the length of the latter. Leaves without sheathing base, articulate, duplicate, often coriaceous; veins inconspicuous. Inflorescences sprouting at the (sub-)basal node of the pseudobulbs; single to few-fasciculate, 1-flowered. Peduncle shorter than the pseudobulbs to longer than the leaves, bracts 2—3, all near the base of the peduncle or scattered along it. Flowers small to medium-sized, per sympodium 1 open at the time; floral bracts tubular; pedicel with the basal node well above the attachment of the floral bract, approx. as long as or longer than the ovary. Sepals free, all approx. equally long or the laterals slightly longer; 0.6—2.2 cm long, elliptic to (ob-)ovate, obtuse to acuminate, margins entire, glabrous to papillose or ciliate; thin, 3—5-nerved, surface glabrous to (partially) hirsute. Petals very different from the sepals, often appressed to the lip, 0.4—1 cm long, deeply concave, wedge-shaped, rhombiform, (ob-)ovate to elliptic or oblong, distinctly unguiculate; apex truncate to acuminate; margins entire to slightly erose (distally deeply lacerate in Bulbophyllum coiloglossum); glabrous to papillose or ciliolate; thin but with the midnerve abaxially distinctly keeled; 1-veined; glabrous. Lip immobile, slipper-shaped, fused to the column foot by a thick strip of tissue; base with distinct, often somewhat retrorse, rounded auricles, undivided, 0.5—1.5 cm long, elliptic to (ob-)ovate and deeply saccate, distinctly unguiculate; apex with a small, thickened, recurved, ovate to triangular top part at the front margin of the saccate part, glabrous; adaxially in between the auricles with a distinct, transverse ridge with a (deeply) concave and sometimes 2-toothed front margin and a distinctly convex back margin with protrudes as a median tooth, the saccate part with or without three longitudinal ridges following the veins. Column with rostellum front receding in between the stelidia; stigma narrow, without keels inside, the base not protruding; column foot more or less widening and thickening towards the tip, ending in 1 or two calli around which the lip is attached; free part long; stelidia slightly shorter than of the column length or longer, distinct, narrowly triangular to subulate, with or without a small, antrorse, triangular tooth along the upper margin, without a tooth along the lower margin, at most a slight, rounded widening present. Anther with a prominent, rounded crest, fin ront concave, front margin more or less drawn out; pollinia 2 or 4, the inner ones more than half as long as the outer ones; without appendages.

---