Species Information - Dendrobium hellerianum

Dendrobium hellerianum A.D.Hawkes, Lloydia 20 (1957) 120 (nom. nov.).

Type: Schlechter 19885 (holo B, lost)

Synonyms:

• Dendrobium inflatum Schltr., Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 1 (1912) 620 (non Rolfe); 21 (1928) t. 209, fig. 788.
  - Type: Schlechter 19885 (holo B, lost).
• Eriopexis helleriana (A.D.Hawkes) Rauschert, Feddes Repert. 94 (1983) 447.

Rhizome very short, roots elongated, filiform, flexuose, glabrous. Stems crowded, patent, strongly laterally flattened, 60-80 cm by 13 mm, many-leaved. Leaf sheaths 1.3 cm wide, entirely covering the stem, ancipitous. Leaves suberect, elliptic, 10-11 by 3-3.5 cm, base subpetiolate, apex obtuse, keeled below. Inflorescences arising laterally from the stem, subsessile, 2-flowered, spathe very short, laterally compressed, broadly obtuse. Ovary 1.3 cm long, glabrous. Flowers c. 4 cm across. Dorsal sepal elliptic, 2.2 cm long, apex obtuse. Lateral sepals obliquely elliptic, much widened at the base, 2.2 cm long, apex obtuse; mentum subglobose, 1.5 cm wide. Petals obliquely elliptic-spathulate, a little shorter than the sepals, apex obtuse. Lip 3-lobed near the apex, 1.1 by 1.3 cm, very broadly cuneate at the base, at the base with fascicles of branched hairs, near the middle with similar more sparse hairs; lateral lobes rounded, front margin serrulate-ciliate, apex obtuse; midlobe hardly extending beyond the lateral lobes, semiorbicular, shortly acuminate. Column short, to the apex conspicuously narrowed, clinandrium 3-lobulate, the lateral lobules small, obtuse, the median small, tooth-like; column-foot linear, very long, incurved, at the base with a bilobulate callus, near the apex minutely verruculose.
(after Schlechter, 1912).

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