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Spiked Closed-Mouth Orchid
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Spiked Closed-Mouth Orchid
P Native Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Spiked Closed-Mouth Orchid
Botanical name: Cleisostoma racemiferum    Family: Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Synonyms: Aerides racemifera, Sarcanthus tricolor, Sarcanthus pallidus

Spiked Closed-Mouth Orchid is an erect or drooping, miniature to medium sized, tree-dwelling orchid with a stout leaf stem carrying leathery, broadly lorate, unequally bilobed apically leaves. The plant blooms in the spring on an in leaf-axils, rising up, slender, 30 cm long, paniculate, 8-14 branched, successively few, many flowered inflorescence. Flowers have sepals and petals yellow with brownish red spots, lip white; flower-stalk and ovary about 4 mm. Dorsal sepal is nearly oblong, concave, about 3.5 x 2.5 mm, blunt; lateral sepals slightly obliquely oblong, about 3.5 x 3 mm, tip rounded. Petals are oblong, about 3 x 2 mm, blunt; lip lateral lobes erect, triangular; mid-lobe spreading, triangular, blunt; spur conic, 2-2.5 mm. Column is about 2.5 mm, winged. Spiked Closed-Mouth Orchid is found in East Himalaya, from Nepal to Bhutan, NE India, Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, at altitudes of 1400-2000 m. Flowering: May-June.

Identification credit: Pankaj Kumar, Tabish Photographed in cultivation in Imphal, Manipur.

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