Cymbidium erythraeum - Spotted-Lip Cymbidium

Spotted-Lip Cymbidium is a small to large sized, tree-dwelling or rock-dwelling orchid with ovoid, bilaterally flattened pseudobulbs carrying, 5-9, distichous, linear-oblong, gradually tapering to a fine point leaves. The plant blooms in the late summer and early fall on an almost erect to arching or horizontal, 5-14 flowered, 25 to 75 cm long, raceme with scarious, lanceshaped, pointed sheaths and triangular, floral bracts. Flowers are fragrant, 6.5-8 cm in diameter; flower-stalk and ovary 2.5-4.3 cm; sepals and petals green with heavy reddish brown longitudinal stripes and irregular spots of same color, or uniformly greenish yellow; lip pale yellow or white with red-brown venation on lateral lobes and a few red-brown spots and a central longitudinal dash on mid-lobe, or white with yellow venation on lateral lobes and scattered yellow spots on mid-lobe. Sepals are narrowly oblong-inverted-lanceshaped to narrowly obovate-oblong, 34-52 x 7-14 mm, tip pointed to blunt. Petals are sickle shaped, strap-shaped, 33-53 x 4-7 mm, tip pointed; lip elliptic-ovate, 24-43 mm, base fused to basal margins of column for 2-3 mm, 3-lobed; lateral lobes erect, almost ovate, sometimes shortly fringed with hairs; mid-lobe slightly recurved, heart-shaped to sword-shaped, 8-9 x 10-11 mm. Spotted-Lip Cymbidium is found in Nepal to Bhutan, NE India, Myanmar, Vietnam, China, at altitudes of 1400-2800 m. Flowering: October-January.