Mediocalcar papuanum R.S.Rogers, Trans. & Proc. Roy. Soc. South Australia 54 (1930) 37
Type: Lane-Poole 526 (holo AD)
Plant epiphytic. Rhizome terete, creeping, elongated, radicant, covered with fibrous tubular sheaths; roots elongated, filiform, almost straight, shortly pilose. Pseudobulbs minute, terete, up to 2 mm in diameter, very short, firmly adnate lengthwise with the rhizome, unifoliate, the free part disc-like. Leaves leathery, glabrous, elliptical-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, obtuse at the apex, slightly bilobulate with a minute mucrone interposed between the lobules, contracted at the base into a short petiole, carinate, multistriate, about 5-6 cm long, 0.7-1.7 cm wide. Inflorescences single flowered in my specimen, about 4.5 cm long, the peduncle completely covered with large voluminous acute foliaceous imbricate bracts increasing in size from below upwards. Floral bract adpressed, minute, acute, clasping the base of the pedicel. Flowers rather large for the genus. Combined ovary and pedicel very slender, about 1.1 cm long. Sepals connate in the lower two-thirds forming an urn-like tube slightly ventricose at the base in front, subacute at the apices, about 1 cm long, rather wide, 5-nerved. Petals free, as long [as] but much narrower than the sepals, erect, linear, 3-nerved, subacute. Labellum about 9 mm long, adnate to the foot of the column by a rather wide claw, claw auriculate at each side of the base, suberect, thereafter somewhat oblong 5-nerved, dilated above the middle into a deeply concave widely oval saccate lamina, acuminate at the apex. Spur very short for the genus, rotund, sac-like. Column shorter than the labellum, produced into a very short foot, winged on each side of the stigma near the apex. Anther cucullate, bilocular; pollinia 8, two super-imposed pairs on each side. (After Rogers, 1930)
Colours: Flowers "red on the outside, at the base with a yellow labellum."
Habitat: Epiphyte in montane forest; 2100 m.
Flowering time in the wild: November.
Distribution: Malesia (New Guinea, endemic).
Distribution in New Guinea: Papua New Guinea. See map: 436-37M.JPG.
Cultivation: Cool growing epiphyte.
Notes: An insufficiently known species, possibly a form of Mediocalcar agathodaemonis or Mediocalcar versteegii subsp. intermedium.