e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1711450639050_6221843973928018" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Ner<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1711450639050_3846715811576005" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>vilia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Orchidaceae - Epidendroideae - Nervilieae - Nervilia Comm. ex Gaudich.

Description:

  • Terrestrial herbs, with ovoid tubers
  • Leaf solitary, ovate, reniform or orbicular, developed after flowers
  • Inflorescence 1- to several-flowered; flowers resupinate or erect, brown, yellow or reddish green; lip white and often with red markings
  • Sepals subequal, free, erect or rarely spreading
  • Petals similar to sepals but often broader and shorter
  • Lip entire or 3-lobed with side lobes enfolding gynostemium, unspurred, disc variously crested, lamellate
  • Gynostemium elongate; anther operculate, incumbent; pollinia 2, sectile
  • Capsule ellipsoid, in our species mostly beaked
  • x = 9 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Nervilia Comm. ex Gaudich.
    • Gaudichaud in Freycinet: 421 (1829)
    • Schelpe: 56 (1966)
    • Rolfe: 83 (1912) as Pogonia
    • Phillips: 239 (1951) as Pogonia
    • Stewart et al.: 213 (1982)
    • Pettersson: 1 (1991)
    • Linder & Kurzweil: 354 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species ± 60, Africa, Asia and Australia
  • Southern Africa: Species 5, in northeastern parts, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • FREYCINET, L. DE. 1826-1830. Voyage autour du monde. Bertrand, Paris
  • LINDER, H.P. & KURZWEIL, H. 1999. Orchids of southern Africa. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam
  • PETTERSSON, B. 1991. The genus Nervilia (Orchidaceae) in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Orchid Monographs 5
  • 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