''Oeceoclades calcarata'' is a terrestrial orchid species in the genus ''
Oeceoclades
''Oeceoclades'', collectively known as the monk orchids, is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It is related to '' Eulophia'' and like that genus is mostly terrestrial in habit. A few species extend into very arid en ...
'' that is
endemic to
Madagascar.
It was first described by the British botanist
Robert Allen Rolfe in 1905 as ''Eulophia paniculata''. The German botanist
Rudolf Schlechter later described this species as ''Cymbidium calcaratum'' in 1915 and then transferred his own taxon to the genus ''Eulophia'' (as ''E. calcarata'') in 1925. When
Leslie Andrew Garay and
Peter Taylor revised the genus ''Oeceoclades'' in 1976, they transferred this species to the expanded ''Oeceoclades'' as ''O. calcarata'' because even though ''Eulophia paniculata'' was the older name and thus had priority, there had already been an earlier species named ''Oeceoclades paniculata'' (so named by
John Lindley
John Lindley FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist.
Early years
Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley w ...
and now recognized as a species in the genus ''
Robiquetia'') that prevented using that
specific epithet
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
.
[Garay, L.A., and P. Taylor. 1976]
The genus ''Oeceoclades'' Lindl.
''Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University'' 24(9): 249-274.
Garay and Taylor noted that among all the species in the genus ''Oeceoclades'', this one is unique in possessing a forward-projecting
spur under the
labellum.
References
calcarata
Endemic flora of Madagascar
Plants described in 1905
Flora of the Madagascar subhumid forests
{{Cymbidieae-stub