Orchid Information - Family Orchidaceae Subfamily Orchidoideae

Orchidoideae Lindl., Coll. Bot., App. (1826). Type genus: Orchis L.

Synonyms:

• Subfamily Ophrydoideae Burnett, Outlines Bot. (1835) 461, as Subtypus Ophrydeae; Garay in Bot. Mus. Leafl. Harvard Univ. 19 (3) (1960) 87. Type genus: Ophrys L.
• Subfamily Spiranthoideae Dressler, Selbyana 5 (1979) 204; Orch.: Nat. Hist. Class., 166 (1981) 176. Type genus: Spiranthes L.C. Rich.

Terrestrials or rarely epiphytes , sometimes holo-mycotrophic terrestrials with colourless scale leaves. Root tubers or stem tubers absent or ovoid, spherical, ellipsoidal or cylindric-fusiform, solitary or in clusters, hairy or glabrous. Rhizomes absent or fleshy, short to elongate. Leaves spirally arranged, 1 to many, basal or arranged along the stem, deciduous or rarely persistent for more than 1 year, the lower ones and/or the upper ones often scale-like; leaf sheath often present. Inflorescence terminal, erect or arching, 1- to many-flowered; peduncle usually terete, glabrous, hairy or glandular; floral bracts linear, lanceolate, ovate or elliptic, sometimes cucullate, usually glabrous. Flowers small to large, usually resupinate, spirally arranged, rarely secund; pedicel usually short, often obscure. Median sepal free or often adnate to the petals, united in a hood over the column. Lateral sepals usually free, sometimes connate and oblique at the base, rarely adnate to the base of the column, the lip, the stigma lobes or the rostellum; mentum if present spur-like. Petals entire or 2-lobed, often adnate to the median sepal. Lip usually deflexed, entire, 3­ or 5-lobed, or bipartite, occasionally with calli or with 2 basal glands, often at the base saccate or with a spur, scrotiform, fusiform, club-shaped or cylindrical, rarely adnate to the ovary. Column free or rarely at the base adnate to the other floral segments, erect or decumbent; anther 2-locular, as long as or longer than the rostellum, loculi either adnate, divergent or separated on a more or less broad connective; pollinia 2 or 4, sectile, attached by short to elongate cauclicles to 1 or 2 viscidia; staminodes 2, usually present, sessile or stalked, usually shorter than the column, rarely filiform and as long as or longer; stigma entire or 2-lobed, concave to convex; rostellum usually 2- or 3-lobed, shorter than or as long as the anther, sometimes obscure, when 3-lobed the midlobe erect or porrect, lying between or in front of the anther !oculi, the lateral lobes short to long, porrect, rarely incurved or upcurved. Ovary distinct, glabrous or less frequently hairy/glandular.
(after Cribb 2001)

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