Triphora

• Authority

  Ackerman, James D. 1995. An orchid flora of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 73: 1-203.

• Family

  Orchidaceae

• Scientific Name

  Triphora

• Description

  Genus Description - Plants sympodial, terrestrial, rarely epiphytic, small, delicate and inconspicuous, autotrophic or mycotrophic. Roots tuberoid, fleshy, spherical to cylindrical with slender roots from stem base and lower stem below the soil surface, often terminating in tiny ruberoids. Stems slender, terete, erect, often succulent, leafy, glabrous. Leaves nonarticulate, sessile, clasping; blades thin, plicate, or reduced to bracts. Inflorescences lateral and/or terminal, racemose to corymbose, 1- to 15-flowered. Flowers small, inconspicuous, resupinate or not, subtended by foliaceous bracts. Sepals and petals free. Lip clawed, usually trilobed, disc with 1-3 crests. Column elongate, subclavate, footless; stigmas confluent or bilobed; rostellum simple or lacking; anther apical, stalked or not; pollinia 2, each deeply incised, mealy, pollen in tetrads. Fruit an ellipsoidal to obovoid capsule.

• Discussion

  Triphora Nuttall, Gen. N. Amer. PL 2: 193. 1818. Type species. Triphora trianthophora (Swartz) Rydberg based Arethusa trianthophora Swartz of middle and eastern North America, and as subsp. mexicana (S. Watson) Medley in Mexico and Central America. A temperate and tropical genus of the Americas consisting of about 25 species. The generic name refers to either the number of crests on the lip or the number of flowers produced per inflorescence (Schultes & Pease, 1963). Special Literature. Correll, 1950; C. A. Luer, 1972.