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Elegant Closed-Mouth Orchid
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Elegant Closed-Mouth Orchid
P Native Photo: Jambey Tsering
Common name: Elegant Closed-Mouth Orchid
Botanical name: Cleisostoma williamsonii    Family: Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Synonyms: Cleisostoma elegans, Cleisostoma elongatum, Cleisostoma hongkongense

Elegant Closed-Mouth Orchid is a medium sized, tree-dwelling orchid with a short to long, stout to slender, erect to drooping, thick, fleshy, distichous, round, pointed leaves. The plant blooms in the summer and early fall on a 25-30 cm long, pendant, raceme to panicle, in leaf axil. The inflorescence is several flowered that has successive opening flowers. Flowers open widely, pink, lip deep purple-red; flower-stalk and ovary about 5 mm, slender. Dorsal sepal ovate-elliptic, boat-shaped, about 2.2 x 1.5 mm, rounded; lateral sepals obliquely ovate-elliptic, about 2.5 x 1.5 mm, base adnate to column foot, blunt. Petals are oblong, about 2.2 x 1 mm, blunt; lip lateral lobes erect, strap-shaped-oblong, blunt, incurved; mid-lobe narrowly ovate-triangular, fleshy, above with a ridge raised and triangular near spur entrance. Spur is spherical, about 2 mm in diameter. Elegant Closed-Mouth Orchid is found in Bhutan to S. China and SE Asia, at altitudes of 300-2200 m. Flowering: April-June.

Identification credit: Jambey Tsering Photographed in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.

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