''Hemipilia faberi'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the family

Orchidaceae 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 ...

, native to south-central China (

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, north-western

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

, north-eastern

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

Taxonomy

The species was first described by

Robert Allen Rolfe Robert Allen Rolfe (1855, Wilford, Nottinghamshire – 1921, Richmond, Surrey) was an English botanist specialising in the study of orchids. For a time he worked in the gardens at Welbeck Abbey. He entered Kew in 1879 and became second assistant. ...

in 1982 as ''Habenaria faberi'', although he later transferred it to ''

Gymnadenia ''Gymnadenia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family (Orchidaceae) containing 22 terrestrial species. The former genus ''Nigritella'' is now included in ''Gymnadenia''. They can be found in damp meadows, fens and marshes, and on ch ...

''. It was later transferred again to ''Amitostigma''. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study in 2014 found that species of ''Amitostigma'', ''Neottianthe'' and ''Ponerorchis'' were mixed together in a single

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

, making none of the three genera

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

as then

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

. ''Amitostigma'' and ''Neottianthe'' were subsumed into ''Ponerorchis'', with ''Amitostigma faberi'' then becoming ''Ponerorchis faberi''. The genus ''Ponerorchis'' has since been synonymized with the genus ''Hemipilia'', resulting in the present name.

References

faberi Flora of South-Central China Plants described in 1982 {{Orchidoideae-stub