''Ponerorchis tetraloba'' (

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

''Amitostigma tetralobum'') is a species of plant in the family Orchidaceae. It is endemic to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

known from only Sichuan and Yunnan.Flora of China v 25 p 滇蜀无柱兰 dian shu wu zhu lan ''Amitostigma tetralobum''
/ref> The flowers are pink or pale purple.

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1912 by

Achille Eugène Finet Achille Eugène Finet (1863, Argenteuil – 1913, París) was a French botanist best known for his study of orchids native to Japan and China. Within the family Orchidaceae, he was the taxonomic authority of the genera '' Arethusantha'', ...

, as ''Peristylus tetralobus''. It has been placed in both '' Orchis'' and ''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, in which this species was included as ''Amitostigma tetralobum'', found that species of ''Amitostigma'', ''Neottianthe'' and ''

Ponerorchis ''Ponerorchis'' is a genus of Asian terrestrial tuberous orchids (family Orchidaceae). It is native to temperate Eurasia, from Poland to Japan, to the north of the Indian subcontinent and to northern Indochina. They can be found in evergreen for ...

'' 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 this species becoming ''Ponerorchis tetraloba''.

References

Endemic orchids of China tetraloba Endangered plants Orchids of Yunnan Flora of Sichuan Plants described in 1912 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Orchidoideae-stub