e-Key v3 - Schizodium
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Orchidaceae - Orchidoideae - Diseae - Schizodium Lindl.

Description :

  • Slender terrestrial herbs, with ovoid root tubers and wiry, flexuose stems
  • Leaves spathulate or elliptic-ovate, in radical tuft, green, often with purple dots
  • Inflorescence a short and lax raceme; flowers pink or white; bracts ovate-lanceolate
  • Sepals free; median one shallowly galeate and spurred; laterals spreading or reflexed
  • Petals basally ± fused with gynostemium, narrow and unequally bilobed at apex, with minute or prominent anticous lobe
  • Lip fiddle-shaped, unspurred; hypochile concave, mesochile wider and flat, epichile massive, linear, decurved process
  • Gynostemium : anther thecae short, reflexed, parallel and adjacent, anther canals insignificant; pollinia 2, sectile, attached by short caudicles to separate viscidia; stigma pad in front of gynostemium; rostellum shortly 3-lobed
  • Capsule ovate-oblong

Nomenclature:

  • Schizodium Lindl.
    • Lindley: 358 (1838)
    • Rolfe: 253 (1913)
    • Phillips: 234 (1951)
    • Schelpe: 94 (1966)
    • Linder: 341 (1981)
    • Stewart et al.: 157 (1982)
    • Linder & Kurzweil: 182 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 6, Western Cape, extending into Northern and Eastern Cape

References:

  • LINDER, H.P. 1981. Taxonomic studies on the Disinae . A revision of the genus Schizodium Lindl. Journal of South African Botany 47
  • LINDER, H.P. & KURZWEIL, H. 1999. Orchids of southern Africa . A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam
  • LINDLEY, J. 1830-1840. The genera and species of Orchidaceous plants . Ridgways, London
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • ROLFE, R.A. 1913. Order CXXXI. Orchideae . Flora capensis 5,3
  • SCHELPE, E.A. 1966. An introduction to the South African Orchids . Purnell & Sons, Cape Town, Johannesburg
  • STEWART, J., LINDER, H.P., SCHELPE, E.A. & HALL, A.V. 1982. Wild orchids of southern Africa . Macmillan, Johannesburg