Paphiopedilum
DESCRIPTION (FROM WIKIPEDIA)Paphiopedilum species naturally occur among humus layers as terrestrials on the forest floor, while a few are true epiphytes and some are lithophytes. These sympodial orchids lack pseudobulbs. Instead, they grow robust shoots, each with several leaves; some arehemicryptophytes. The leaves can be short and rounded or long and narrow, and typically have a mottled pattern. When older shoots die, newer ones take over. Each new shoot only blooms once when it is fully grown, producing a raceme between the fleshy, succulent leaves. The roots are thick and fleshy. Potted plants form a tight lump of roots that, when untangled, can be up to 1 m long.
Members of this genus are considered highly collectible by orchid fanciers due to the curious and unusual form of their flowers. Along with Cypripedium, Mexipedium, Phragmipedium and Selenipedium, the genus is a member of the subfamily Cypripedioideae, commonly referred to as the "lady's-slippers" or "slipper orchids" due to the unusual shape of the pouch-like labellum of the flower. The pouch traps insects seeking nectar, and to leave again they have to climb up past the staminode, behind which they collect or deposit pollinia |
DESCRIPTION (FROM FLORA OF CHINA)
Plants terrestrial, lithophytic, or epiphytic. Rhizome inconspicuous or short, rarely stoloniferous, with glabrous or hairy roots. Stem short, enclosed in distichous leaf bases, rarely elongated. Leaves usually basal, 3-7, distichous, conduplicate toward base; blade abaxially pale green or sometimes spotted or flushed with purple at base or throughout, adaxially uniformly green or tessellated with dark and light green, narrowly elliptic to suboblong. Scape suberect to arching, terminating in a solitary flower or a several- to many-flowered inflorescence; peduncle usually hairy; floral bracts conduplicate; ovary 1-locular. Flowers large, showy, variable in color. Dorsal sepal often large, margin sometimes recurved; lateral sepals usually fused to form a synsepal. Petals various in shape, suborbicular to spatulate; lip deeply pouched and inflated, globose, ellipsoid, or ovoid, basal portion narrowed and with incurved lateral lobes, hairy at inner bottom. Column short, with 2 lateral fertile stamens, a terminal staminode above, and a stigma below; anthers 2-locular, with very short filament; pollen powdery or glutinous; staminode varying in shape; stigma papillate and inconspicuously 3-lobed. Fruit a capsule
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Species
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