Ibidium Salisb. ex Small

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

  • Family

    Orchidaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Ibidium Salisb. ex Small

  • Description

    Description - Erect terrestrial orchids, with fleshy-fibrous or tuberous roots and slender stems or scapes, leaf-bearing below or at the base. Flowers small, spurless, spiked, 1-3-rowed, the spikes more or less twisted. Sepals free, or more or less coherent, or sometimes united with petals into a galea. Lip concave, erect, embracing the column and often adherent to it, spreading and crisped, or rarely lobed or toothed at the apex, bearing minute callosities at the base. Column arched below, obliquely attached to the top of the ovary. Anther without a lid, borne on the back of the column, erect. Stigma ovate, prolonged into an acuminate beak, at length bifid. Pollinia 2, 1 in each sac, powdery. Capsule ovoid or oblong, erect. About 80 species, natives of temperate and tropical regions. Type species: Ophrys spiralis J. E. Smith.