Epiphyte. Stems three or four together, 10 to 15cm long and 2 to 3 cm in cross section at the apex, narrowed at the base and gradually widening towards the apex, ribbed, sheathed. Leaves 4 to 6 cm long and 1 to 2 cm in width, elliptic-oblong, sub-acute, deciduous during flowering. Flowers 3 to 5 on a short peduncle, 2 to 3 cm across. Sepals and petals pale brownish green, lip is of a slightly darker shade of sepals and petals, with many brownish red streaks and spots on its disc and sides. Sepals sub-equal, the dorsal longer, linear-oblong; the lateral pair lanceolate. Petals smaller and broader than the sepals, lanceolate. Both sepals and petals five nerved. Lip pointed, decurved, with undulate edges and hairy disc.
The Pursuit
A locally common species of the tropical forests. I had spotted this species in large numbers during my various surveys and marked as “seen” and waited for its blooming season. In the referral book, the blooming time was mentioned as April and I decided to visit those plants by mid March. The months of February and March were full of blooming and every day I was forced to travel more than 50 to 120 km on vehicle and around 10 to 15 km on foot. I didn’t want to miss any species as I would have to wait for another year to find those in bloom again. So every day I check and re-check all those in the blooming list and finalise the trips to various locations. In the second week of February, I was on a trip to a place around 70 km from my base station for a ground orchid, which I found a week before. From the motorable road I used to trek another 7 or 8 km to the location. So used to set out early morning and reach the last point by road and trekked to the location of the ground orchid. Mysteriously I found that the two ground orchid plants, I had spotted a week earlier were missing. The location was so remote no humans venture there. It would have been uprooted by wild pigs or eaten by deers which roam there. As I got company in the form of the pilot of my vehicle, we started searching the whole area for more of those species. We searched for over three hours, but were not able to find another plant. Totally disappointed and tired we returned back. On the way back, I accidentally spotted this species in full bloom on a tree next to the trekking path, just a single stem in flower. It actually surprised me, to see this plant in bloom as early as mid February. Even though I had spotted this plant earlier and I knew I would get them in flower in the coming days, the find on that afternoon made me forget the disappearance of those ground orchids. Climbed up the tree and produced this wonderful photograph. Also looked for more plants of the species in flower to find only one more without any buds. While returning, the kind words of my pilot, “don’t worry swamiji, at-least we got something in bloom!!!” broke the silence created by the disappearance of those ground orchids.