Prescottia oligantha (Sw.) Lindl.
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Orchidaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Terrestrial herb to 40 cm tall; roots several, fingerlike, 3-8 mm thick. Leaves 2-4; blades 1.5-8 X 0.8-3 cm, entire, cuneate, elliptic to suborbicular, acute to rounded, membranous; petioles 1-3 cm long, erect or prostrate. Flowers glabrous, many in dense spikes to 17 cm long; scape 12-31 cm tall, partially covered by sheathing bracts; floral bracts ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, clasping the base of the ovary, 1.5-4 mm long. Sepals pinkish, 1-nerved, basally connate, reflexed-spreading, 1-2.2 x ca. 1 mm; dorsal sepal ovate, reflexed, curled; lateral sepals triangular to deltoid, connate with lip, forming a mentum, slightly larger than the dorsal sepal; petals white or pink, basally adnate to column and sepals, reflexed, narrowly obovate to oblong, 1-1.5 x 0.5 mm; lip uppermost, white, erect, forming a short mentum with the lateral sepals, fleshy, basally auriculate, hood-shaped, enclosing the column, shallowly saccate, apiculate, 1-2 mm long; column dorsally adnate to sepaline tube, minute, winged at apex; ovary subsessile, 1.5-3.5 mm long. Capsule erect, ellipsoidal, ca. 4 mm long.
Distribution and Ecology - Uncommon, known from shady sites in moist forests and thickets. Bordeaux (B535). Also on St. Thomas and Tortola; the West Indies, Rorida, and Mexico to South America.