ORCHIDACEAE
Orchidaceae
monocots
Current
Angiosperm
Phylogeny
Group Tree
for Flowering
Plants
ORCHIDACEAE IN THE ASPARAGALES
Flowers in racemes, usually bisexual, bilaterally symmetrical,
commonly resupinate (rotating in anthesis so that positionally upper
parts in bud are lower in flower)
Perianth 3 + 3 tepals, more or less differentiated
Petals - one (positionally upper in bud) differentiated into a lebellum
(lip)
Stamens commonly 1 (primitively 2-3); pollen usually dispersed as
pollinia, 1-6 per pollen sac
Gynoecium 3-carpellate, 1-locular, ovary inferior, no septal nectaries,
parietal placentation
Column formed from adnation of single stamen to style present in
derived orchids
Fruit a capsule opening along the side, intact at top and bottom
Seeds minute and exceedingly numerous (to several million per fruit),
embryo minute and undifferentiated, endosperm scant or missing
(usually arrested at 4-cell stage),
ORCHIDACEAE
- Encyclia
pseudobulbs
roots with velamen
OT
IT
OT
Phalaenopsis
IT
OT
OT
standard
IT
column
OT
Laelia
IT
OT
Calopogon, a non-resupinate orchid
Cypripedioideae
Cypripedioids
vs.
Epidendroids
Arundina - India throughout Asia and
across the Pacific Islands to Java
Vanilla planifolia
Brassoleiocattleya - the trigeneric hybrid
Angraecum sesquipedale
Xanthopan
© Esko Puupponen
Epidendrum radicans
and its mimics
Asclepias curassavica
Lantana
camara
Miniatures: Pleurothallis etc.
Ophrys
pollination