Genus Lecanorchis

Lecanorchis Blume,
Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. 2 (1856) 188

Leafless sympodial terrestrial plants, lacking chlorophyll, with short erect underground rhizomes. Inflorescence a raceme or a panicle, wiry, blackish. Flowers at the base with a collar-like structure, medium-sized, resupinate, brownish or violet outside, often whitish inside. Sepals free. Petals free, similar to the dorsal sepal. Lip without spur, not mobile, entire or 3-lobed, in the basal part adnate to the sides of the column, apex hairy. Column-foot absent. Pollinia 2, mealy; caudicles, stipe, and viscidium absent. Seed with two slender appendages.

Distribution
Tropical East Asia, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea. About 20 species; in New Guinea c. 4 species.

Habitat
Terrestrial in lowland forest.

Notes
A very distinctive genus of leafless terrestrials with slender blackish stems. The collar-like structure at the base of the flower is a unique character among the leafless orchids. The taxonomy of the tropical Asian and New Guinea species is very confused, a situation that will be difficult to remedy due to the sparsity of available material in herbaria and the often poor state of preservation of the specimens.

Species included on this CD-ROM:
Lecanorchis bicarinata
Lecanorchis ciliolata
Lecanorchis javanica
Lecanorchis neglecta

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