Corycium Sw., Kongl. Vetensk. Acad. Nya Handl. 21: 220 (1800).
Description:
Terrestrial herb with undivided sometimes stalked tubers. Stem erect, leafy; leaves radical and cauline, linear or oblong, suberect or sometimes spreading, flat or sometimes crisped. Inflorescence terminal, many-flowered, often densely spicate; bracts lanceolate, shorter or longer than the flowers.
Flowers small to medium-sized, subglobose.Dorsal sepal erect, narrow, concave. Lateral sepals usually united, narrowed at the base and connate into a concave limb. Petals obliquely falcate, curved and united with the margins of the dorsal sepal to form a hood, usually somewhat contracted in front, concave or obliquely saccate at the base.Lip ascending along the face of the column and adnate to it between the stigmatic lobes and rostellum arms, narrowed into a claw below, dilated into a reflexed transversely lunate or 2-lobed limb above, limb more rarely oblong or lanceolate; produced above the junction with the column into a large reflexed or erect variously-shaped fleshy appendage. Column short, dilated, produced in front into 2 horizontal arms, holding at their extreme ends the glands of the pollinia; anther cells more or less distant, placed in front of or sometimes behind the arms of the rostellum, erect or ascending, glands of the pollinia uppermost; stigma posticous, pulvinate, lunate or 2-lobed, or with 2 lateral and distant stigmas.
Type species: Corycium orobanchoides (L.f.) Sw.
Distribution:
Tanzania to S. Africa
Cultivation:
Not in cultivation.
Corycium Section Carnosum Kurzweil & H.P. Linder in Pl. Syst. Evol. 175: 218 (1991).
Type species: Corycium carnosum (Lindl.) Rolfe
Flowers semi-globose; resupinate; lateral sepals free; lip bilobed, with hood-like and beaked ap-pendage; thecae horizontal; stigmas borne on the terminal rostellum portions.
A single species in the Western Cape.
Species:
Corycium carnosum (Lindl.) Rolfe | SW. & S. Cape Prov. |
World Checklist of Monocotyledons.The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; http://www.kew.org/wcsp/monocots/ accessed 02/04/2020
Corycium Section Microglossum Kurzweil & H.P. Linder in Pl. Syst. Evol. 175: 218 (1991).
Type species: Corycium microglossum Lindl.
Flowers semi-globose or totally open, resupinate or non-resupinate; lateral sepals only basally or extensively fused; lip narrowly-lanceolate or broadly-lorate, with elongate appendage with ventral keel; thecae horizontal or semi-pendent; stigmas borne in the inner rostellum portions.
Three phylogenetically isolated species in southern Africa.
Species:
Corycium microglossum Lindl. | SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium bifidum Sond. | SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium flanaganii (Bolus) Kurzweil & H.P.Linder | E. Cape Prov. to Lesotho. |
World Checklist of Monocotyledons.The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; http://www.kew.org/wcsp/monocots/ accessed 02/04/2020
Corycium Section Corycium
Flowers globose or rarely semi-globose, resupinate; sepals fresh or dry and black at flowering, lateral sepals normally fused for more than half their length, very rarely free; lip bilobed, with shield-like appendage with lateral processes; the-cae semi-pendent; stigmas borne in the inner rostellum portions behind the lip appendage.
Elleven species in the Western Cape and in the summer-rainfall region of southern Africa, two species ranging into tropical Africa.
Species:
Corycium alticola Parkman & Schelpe | S. Africa. |
Corycium bicolorum (Thunb.) Sw. | SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium crispum (Thunb.) Sw. | W. & SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium deflexum (Bolus) Rolfe | WSW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium dracomontanum Parkman & Schelpe | S. Malawi (Mt. Muylanje), S. Africa. |
Corycium excisum Lindl. | SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium ingeanum E.G.H.Oliv. | Cape Prov. (Nieuwoudtville area). |
Corycium nigrescens Sond. | S. Tanzania (Kitulo Plateau), S. Africa. |
Corycium orobanchoides (L.f.) Sw. | SW. Cape Prov. |
Corycium tricuspidatum Bolus | S. Africa. |
World Checklist of Monocotyledons. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; http://www.kew.org/wcsp/monocots/ accessed 02/04/2020
Bibliography and References:
Cribb P, Kurzweil H. 1994 The genus Corycium (Orchidaceae) newly reported for Tanzania. Kew Bull. 49. (3): 555-557 (1994)
James ML. 1986 Species of the S.W. Cape Corycium orobanchoides Swartz. S. Afr. Orchid J., 17. (1): 19 (1986)
Kurzweil H, Linder HP, Chesselet P. 1991 The phylogeny and evolution of the Pterygodium-Corycium complex (Coryciinae, Orchidaceae). Pl. Syst. Evol. 175. (3-4): 161-223 (1991)
Kurzweil H, Linder HP, Stern WL, Pridgeon AM. 1995 Comparative vegetative anatomy and classification of Diseae (Orchidaceae). Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 117. 171-220.
Kurzweil H. 1991 The unusual structure of gynostemium in the Orchidaceae, Corycinnae. Bot. Jahrb. 112. (3): 273-293 (1991) - illus. Icones, Anatomy and morphology. Geog=2, 5 Geog = 2,5 (KR, 199101819).
Linder HP, Kurzweil H. 1994 The phylogeny and classification of the diseae (Orchidoideae: Orchidaceae). Ann. missouri Bot. Gard. 81. 687-713.
Oliver EGH. 1986 A new species of orchid from the north-western Cape. S. Afr. J. Bot., 52. (3): 256-260 (1986)