Cheirostylis

Cheirostylis, commonly known as fleshy jewel orchids^[2] or velvet orchids,^[3] is a genus of about sixty species of flowering plants in the orchid family Orchidaceae. Plants in this genus are terrestrial herbs with a caterpillar-like rhizome and a loose rosette of leaves. Small, white, hairy flowers develop as the leaves wither. They are found in tropical Africa, southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Malesia, New Guinea and Australia.

Description

Orchids in the genus Cheirostylis are terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, sympodial herbs with a creeping, caterpillar-like, above-ground rhizome anchored to the ground by fine white root hairs. The leaves are thinly textured and arranged in a loose rosette with a short petiole but are usually withered by flowering time. The flowers are resupinate and usually small, white and hairy with the dorsal sepal and lateral sepals fused for about half their length. The petals are free from each other but are narrower than the sepals. The tip of the labellum has two lobes and a narrow base forming a shallow depression containing two calli.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Taxonomy and naming

The genus Cheirostylis was first formally described in 1825 by Carl Ludwig Blume and the description was published in Bijdragen tot de flora van Nederlandsch Indië.^[1][7]

The first species of Cheirostylis described by Blume was C. montana, making it the type species.^[8]

Distribution

Cheirostylis orchids occur in tropical Africa through tropical Asia from Japan to New Guinea and some Pacific Islands. Seventeen species, eight of which are endemic occur in China and two species are endemic to Australia.^[2][3][5]

List of species

The following is a list of species recognised by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as at August 2018:^[1]

References