Zeuxine andamanica - Andaman Jewel Orchid

Andaman Jewel Orchid is a terrestrial orchid 30-45 cm tall, with stem stout in its lower half, rooting at the base. Flower-spikes are 7-15 cm long, many- but rather laxly-flowered. Flowers are 5-6 mm long floral bract sparsely finely velvet-hairy, about as long as the finely velvet-hairy ovary, broadly ovate, 1-nerved, its edges erose, with a long tapering tip. Dorsal sepal is broadly ovate-elliptic, concave, somewhat pointed ; the lateral pair narrower, pointed, not spreading. Petals are narrower than the sepals, elliptic, somewhat pointed, connivent with the dorsal sepal to form a hood covering the column. Lip is longer than the sepals ; the hypochile globularly saccate and having a prominent incurved tooth near the base within each margin ; mesochile constricted ; epichile deeply divided into two broadly-oblong diverging lobes with flat minutely erose tips, the broad sinus with a minute point in its tip. Flower-cluster-stalks of the spike are slender, elongate, with sparse thin hairs, and bearing 3 or 4 distant scarious narrowly tubular bracts about 1.2 cm length. Leaves are 4 to 10, scattered over the lower half of the stem, lanceshaped, pointed, the leaf-stalk very short and expanding into a short wide scarious sheath ; length 3-5 cm, breadth 1.5-2 cm, leaf-stalk about 2-3 mm. Andaman Jewel Orchid is endemic to Andaman Islands.