CAMAROTIS | Herbarium Digital Library


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CAMAROTIS

Category: Plants and Orchids
Date Posted: 2006-10-13

CAMAROTIS

Two SPECIES OF THE FOUR MEMBERS OF THIS ASIATIC GENUS are reported from the Philippines and only C. philippinensis is even infrequently encountered in private collections. This species is interesting because of its curiously shaped floral parts and the fact that the fleshy flower is not resupinate; therefore the labellum is at the top of the flower instead of at the bottom. The column also has a curved appendage which in a minute fashion resembles the trunk of an elephant.

This plant often appears in collections of orchids obtained from native dealers who confuse it with more important showy species of the genera Vanda, -or Trichoglottis (Stauropsis). It has racemes of pearly white flowers that are tinged with purple. Each is about three-quarters of an inch in diameter and is of unusual shape with re-curved petals and sepals; with a peculiar saclike labellum, which is not spurred. The plant is an interesting addition to a collection because it produces a number of sprays of flowers during its flowering season of August through September. Its growth is upright and the stems are from one to four feet tall and the thickness of a pencil. The leaves are alternately arranged, about two to three inches long and are spaced about an inch along the stem. The flower spikes are six to ten inches tall, upright, and have fifteen to twenty flowers which open during August and September. The species can be collected from the trees in the open forest areas of Central Luzon.

The generic name, Camarotis, means a “vault" in reference to the cavity in the apex of the lip, and the specific name refers to the Islands to which the species is indigenous. Besides being found on Luzon, specimens have also been collected on Leyte and Sorsogon.