Schizochilus crenulatus flowers

The flowers of Schizochilus crenulatus are not resupinate. Because the flower is pendent on the drooping stem, the inconspicuous segment visible at the top of the flower in picture is the median sepal; the lip being presented at the bottom (growing at the apex of the upside down flower), below the column.

The median sepal is shallowly helmet-shaped or concave and narrowly oblong to ovate. At the other end of the flower the lip, here covered in tiny, scattered mauve dots, is three-lobed; the central lobe being the biggest.

The lateral sepals are obliquely lance-shaped to narrowly ovate, usually longer than the median one. The rhomboid to oblique petals are small, folding in over the central column, while the mauve striped sepals outside them spread widely. Flower diameter is about 5 mm.

The floral bract is small, pointed and purple, about 3 mm long. It is about half the length of the ovary around which it folds on a fully open flower. The bracts seen on the closed buds near the tip of the inflorescence in picture cover not only the ovary, but parts of the still underdeveloped corollas as well.

Flower colour is white with mauve vein lines or dots across them. Crenulatus (Latin) means finely notched edge, probably referring to the lip margin (www.africanorchids.dk; www.orchidspecies.com).