Gastrodia minor

Detailed description

Terrestrial, saprophytic, deciduous, fleshy, perennial herb lacking chlorophyll. Plant at flowering up to 300 mm tall. Rhizome mycorrhizal, tuberous, rather swollen, short-lived, extensively branched, individual sections up to 40 × 10 mm, dull pale brown to brownish-black, sparsely clad in chartaceous scales, especially toward the active apex. Stem 1.5–2 mm diameter, dark brown to brown-black, slender, rather brittle when fresh. Scale leaves chartaceous, few, small and widely spaced. Flowers up to 10, brownish-black, usually cleistogamous, unscented, erect to spreading, tubular, sparsely tuberculate toward base, tubercules paler in colour. Perianth 6–10 × 2–4 mm, lobes slightly thickened toward margins. Lateral sepals fused slightly above the gibbous base otherwise with their margins lying close together. Labellum 2.5–4 × 1.0–2.0 mm, white, narrow-oblong, membranous, not irritable, completely enclosed within floral tube (apex just visible in the open flowers) and mostly fused to it, thickened distally, margins narrow, slightly undulose, bearing two long median, cristate, pinkish white calli, apex yellow. Column very short, wing a minute, erect, process; anther terminal, erect and bending forwards, short, ellipsoid, operculate, filament scarcely pleated at the back, pollen breaking into angular granules; stigma basal, immediately below anther, ellipsoid, hollow; rostellum flap-like, positioned under anther.