Orthochilus chloranthus

Green eulophia, the common name of Orthochilus chloranthus, should also change after the plant’s recent formal name change from Eulophia chlorantha. A small species, reaching only about 20 cm when producing its greenish yellow flowers in the grass, it may wait long for such an event or even be overlooked by those in the habit of conferring names.

The plant presents two or three leaves in a fascicle shorter than the scape. The leaves are erect, narrowly linear, their tips sharply acute. The slender scape grows from the side, bearing several acute sheaths and terminating in a lax spike of five to eight flowers.

The small natural distribution of this species is limited to a part of eastern Mpumalanga and of Swaziland, from Barberton to Mbabane. A terrestrial orchid of open grassland, O. chloranthus grows near mountain tops among rocks at elevations from 200 m to 1600 m.

This habitat isn’t protected from destruction, coming in the form of expanding forest plantations and invasive exotic plants. No wonder the species is considered vulnerable early in the twenty first century (www.africanorchids.dk; www.redlist.sanbi.org).