Crepidium khasianum - Khasi Boot Orchid

Khasi Boot Orchid is a small sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial orchid with a short, leafy stem carrying 4 to 5, ovate-lanceshaped leaves. Leaves are oblique, pointed to tapering, with wavy wavy margins, strongly veined, greenish grey flushed with purple, narrowing below into the stalked base. The plant blooms in the summer on a deeply ridged, hairless, ebracteate, 11-21 cm long, raceme-like several flowered inflorescence which is lax below, dense above, with lanceshaped, pointed, basally reflexed floral bracts. Flowers are yellowish green, relatively small; flower-stalk and ovary 3.5-4.5 mm. Sepals are oblong-elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 2.4-2.8 x 1-1.2 mm, tip blunt; lateral sepals somewhat oblique. Petals narrowly linear, 2-2.5 x about 0.3 mm, tip blunt; lip superior, nearly broadly oblong in outline, 3.5-4 mm, with an indentation on either side below or near middle, formed by involute margin, base with a central depression, surrounded by a fleshy ridge, tip shallowly 2-lobed, sinus about 0.5 mm deep; ears subovate or oblong-ovate, 1-1.2 mm. Khasi Boot Orchid is found in Eastern HImalayas, from NE India to Thailand and Yunnan, at altitudes of 1000-3000 m. Flowering: June-July.