e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705322330066_8509664190170185" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Acrol<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705322330066_5933174407939603" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>ophia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Orchidaceae - Epidendroideae - Cymbidieae - Acrolophia Pfitzer

Description:

  • Terrestrial herbs, with thick roots with prominent velamen
  • Leaves distichous, coriaceous, persistent
  • Inflorescences terminal, panicles or racemes; flowers resupinate or not, maroon, brown or green, lip often yellow or white; bracts small
  • Sepals subequal, free, subconnivent or spreading
  • Petals similar to sepals
  • Lip 3-lobed or entire, saccate or spurred at base; disc variously papillose or crested
  • Gynostemium: anther terminal, operculate, often 2-horned; pollinia 4, united in pairs; stigma in cavity below rostellum
  • Capsule ovoid or oblong, with thickened angles

Nomenclature:

  • Acrolophia Pfitzer
    • Pfitzer: 59 (1887)
    • Rolfe: 12 (1912)
    • Phillips: 241 (1951)
    • Schelpe: 26 (1966)
    • Stewart et al.: 253 (1982)
    • Linder & Kurzweil: 398 (1999)
  • Eulophia R.Br. sect. Desciscentes Lindl.
    • Lindley: 184 (1833)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa: Species 7, Zululand (KwaZulu-Natal) to Western Cape

References:

  • 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
  • PFITZER, E.H.H. 1887. Entwurf einer natürlichen Anordnung der Orchideen. Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, Heidelberg
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • ROLFE, R.A. 1912. 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

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