FoI
Chinese Lady's-Tresses
Share Foto info
Chinese Lady's-Tresses
ative Photo: Dony Kokii
Common name: Chinese Lady's-Tresses
Botanical name: Spiranthes sinensis    Family: Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Synonyms: Spiranthes lancea, Spiranthes pudica, Spiranthes australis

The genus name Spiranthes comes from the Greek words "speira" meaning spiral and "anthos" meaning flower, and refers to the spiral arrangement of flowers. Chinese Lady's-Tresses is an orchid found in the Himalayas and in many countries from Asia to Australia. It is a medium sized, cool to hot growing terrestrial orchid found on roadsides, grassy areas, open forests, at elevations of 100-2000 m. The plant has cylindrical, velvety roots, and a basal rosette of a few oblong-elliptic to linear-lanceshaped, pointed glossy dark green leaves. Flowers are borne on an erect, slender, up to 25 cm long many flowered spike. The spreading flowers twist around in a spiral with 2 to 3 distant, glandular-hairy sheaths and lanceshaped, long-pointed, glandular-hairy floral bracts. Flowers are rose to rose-purple, rarely whitish, fragrant. Sepals are lanceshaped, up to 5 mm long, the dorsal forming a tube with the narrower petals and lip. Flowering: May-September.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh, Pankaj Kumar Photographed in Shillong, Meghalaya.

• Is this flower misidentified? If yes,