''Phalaenopsis tetraspis'' is a species of epiphytic

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...

, the

Nicobar Islands The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the Indian s ...

and northwestern

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. It was originally erroneously published as a Himalayan species by Reichenbach, which was corrected by James Veitch 23 years after Heinrich Gustav Reichenbachs publication. Mature specimens may have up to nine leaves, but usually plants have 4–5, elliptic-obovate, acute to obtuse, 20 cm long and 8 cm wide leaves. Showy, fleshy, fragrant flowers are produced on axillary, arching to subpendent racemes or panicles. A prominent feature of this species is the midlobe of the labellum, which is oblong, obtuse-subacute, and the apex is covered in dense trichomes. The karyotype is asymmetric and nonuniform.

Confusion with ''Phalaenopsis speciosa''

Both names were assigned on the basis of preserved specimens by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. He saw differences in leaf colouration, in addition to floral and root morphology. These differences are however insignificant and both taxa differ solely in their floral colouration. The colouration is however a very transitory trait and various intermediate forms between red and white occur. The floral phenotype even shows temporal variations within singular individuals in subsequent seasons. Therefore, the sole reason of separation, which was the floral colouration, cannot be seen as a hard fact, but rather as a transitory characteristic, which does not legitimise a separate species status. Based on these observations ''Phalaenopsis speciosa'' was reduced to a synonym of ''Phalaenopsis tetraspis''.Jayanthi, J., Karthigeyan, K., Sumathi, R., & Jalal, J. S. Taxonomic note on Phalaenopsis speciosa (Orchidaceae) in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India.

Horticulture

As of February 2022, the International Orchid Register of the Royal Horticultural Society lists 187 registered hybrids involving ''Phalaenopsis tetraspis'' under the inclusion of its synonym ''Phalaenopsis speciosa''. The taxonomic changes have only been sparingly adapted in horticulture and plants are often still sold as ''Phalaenopsis speciosa''.

References

External links

* * tetraspis Orchids of India Orchids of Indonesia {{Phalaenopsis-stub