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Disperis reichenbachiana Welw. ex Rchb.f., Flora 48: 180 (1865).
Description:
Glabrous herb, 7-5-25 cm. tall, arising from ellipsoid to globose tubers 0-5-2 cm. long, 5-8 mm. wide. Leaves 2-4, alternate, sessile, ovate, elliptic-ovate or mostly ovate-lanceolate, 2-5-4-2 cm. long, 0-9-2-5 cm. wide, obtuse or subacute, cordate, mostly purplish beneath, the venation often whitish; leaves drying a dark colour. Racemes (1-)2-5-flowered; flowers mostly mauve; bracts leaf-like, elliptic, 0-5-2-3 cm. long, 0-3-1 cm. wide. Intermediate sepal joined to petals to form an obovate or rhomboid, open, apically inflexed limb, 0-5-1 cm. long, 6-5-8-5 mm. wide, mauve or magenta often with 2 darker reversed n-shaped marks filled in with yellow; lateral sepals obliquely oblong, 0-4-1-05 cm. long, 4-5-5 mm. wide, acute, free or joined for about a quarter of their length, bearing shallow sacs 0-5-1 mm. long. Petals triangular-elliptic, 0-8-1 cm. long, 2-3-5 mm. wide. Lip white or yellowish, 6-5-8 mm. long, with claw sharply bent back on itself near base and there bearing a stout papillate appendage divided into 2 diverging arms; claw terminating in a fleshy papillate oblong-cuneate or hoof-shaped appendage, 1-5-2-5 mm. long, joined to the claw near its middle.
Habitat:
In leaf litter in deep shade on the floor of riverine and submontane forest and occasionally in mossy rock cracks in grassland and bush, at 800-2330 m.
Phenology:
Flowering from December to March in south-central Africa, and December to July in eastern Africa.
Cultivation:
As given for the genus.
Distribution:
Trop. Africa
References:
Orchidaceae of West-central Africa, vol. 1, Gdansk University Press Gdansk 2010; Orchids of Kenya Stewart 1996 Flora of Tropical East Africa Summerhayes 1968; Orchids of East Africa Piers 1968; The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977; Orchids of the Central African Republic a Provisional Checklist Cribb & Fay 1987; Flora Zambesiaca Vol. 11 Part 1 Pope 1995; Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996; Terrestrial African Orchids, A select Review John S. Ball 2009; A synopsis of the genus Disperis Sw. (Orchidaceae), ADANSONIA, sér. 3 - 2005 - 27 (2) : 155-207
Images:
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Habitat/In situ	Habitat/In situ	Habitat/In situ	Habitat/In situ	Habitat/In situ
Photograph© Warren McCleland. Image used with kind permission.	Photograph© Warren McCleland. Image used with kind permission.	Photograph© Warren McCleland. Image used with kind permission.	Photograph© Warren McCleland. Image used with kind permission.	Photograph© Warren McCleland. Image used with kind permission.