Autumn

Description

Zeuxine goodyeroides is a terrestrial orchid of shaded forest floors in the eastern Himalaya and adjoining mountains of China (including Yunnan and Tibet), India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, with around 56 documented occurrences indicating a scattered but wide distribution. It grows in leaf litter and humus-rich soils of subtropical to lower-temperate broad-leaved and mixed forest, generally between about 800 and 2000 m. The photographed plant was recorded at Trithangebe in Bhutan at 900 m, flowering in October, when the post-monsoon humidity favours the development of these inconspicuous ground orchids.

The species is a small herb arising from a creeping, fleshy rhizome that roots at the nodes, the erect stem bearing several spirally arranged leaves toward the base. The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, somewhat fleshy, often with a pale midrib, recalling the genus Goodyera to which the epithet alludes. The inflorescence is a slender, pubescent terminal raceme of numerous small, non-resupinate-appearing white to greenish flowers; the sepals are pubescent dorsally, the petals adhere to the dorsal sepal forming a hood, and the diagnostic labellum is saccate at the base with two basal glands and bears a transversely dilated, bilobed epichile. The fruit is a small dehiscent capsule with dust-like seeds.

Zeuxine belongs to subtribe Goodyerinae of the Orchidaceae (here spelled Orchideaceae as supplied), the jewel-orchid alliance, distinguished by the spurless, basally pouched labellum bearing internal glands. Easily overlooked owing to its small stature, it depends like most terrestrial Goodyerinae on mycorrhizal associations in undisturbed forest humus. It is not formally assessed but is sensitive to forest-floor disturbance.

Author: Lindl. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, The Genera Orchidacearum (Pridgeon et al.)