Vanda spathulata

Vanda spathulata 

offer 1 root cutting , healthy 

Found in southern India and Sri Lanka in low brush at elevations of sea level to 300 meters as a large sized, hot growing, vine-like, scrambling terrestrial and as such is singular in the genus with long, leafy stems carrying distichous, recurved, coriaceous, reddish green, sometimes spotted on the upper surface, unequally bilobed leaves taht blooms in the spring and again in the fall on axillary to lateral, 12 to 16" [30 to 40 cm] long, erect, green, with 4 acute, papery, sterile bracts, 4 to 5 flowered inflorescence arising from the middle of the stem or below, with broadly ovate, acute, 5 to 7 veined floral bracts.

It's leaves have unequal lobes instead of the bitten off praemorse apex typical of the V tesselata group and the petals and sepals lack the clawed bases of typical Vandas and it blooms either in the fall or in the spring with flowers that may or may not have a scent.

This orchid also has successive flowers that take weeks to open in deference to the other Vandas that all open within a few days. In fact this species approaches Papilionanthe in this habit as well as it's viney growth within bushes. For that reason Christenson proposed the new genus Taprobanea to accomodate this intermediate species between Vanda and Papilionanthe. I have left it as a Vanda until more information becomes available.