Pholidota
(from pholis, a scale, and ous, otis, an ear; alluding to the scaly, ear-like bracts of the spike). Rattlesnake Orchid. SYNS. Chelonanthera (in part), Crinonia, Ptilocnema. ORD. Orchideae. A genus consisting of about a score species of stove orchids, with creeping, branched stems or rhizomes, or with one or two-leaved pseudo-bulbs; they are natives of India and the Malayan Archipelago, extending as far as Southern China. Flowers small, shortly pedicellate, in terminal racemes; sepals carinate-concave, crect or spreading; petals usually smaller, slender, flat; lip sessile at the base of the column, concave and sub-baccate at base, three-lobed; column sometimes very short; bracts ovate, imbricated, and persistent, or narrower and deciduous. The species are of no particular horticultural value. Those given below require culture similar to Coelogyne (which see).
P. clypeata (shield-flowered). fl. resembling those of P. imbricata, but arranged in a spike not more than 3in. long; column resembling a three-lobed petal, bordered with brown, imparting to the flower the appearance of having two lips. Pseudo-bulbs about 2in. long, each with a dark green leaf. h. 6in. Borneo, 1847.
P. imbricata (imbricated). fl. yellowish, with a dash of violet, freely produced on pendulous spikes as long as the leaves; lateral sepals ovate, carinate; lip sub-globose, cucullate, with the intermediate lobe bilobed; bracts concave, pointed, l. solitary, oblong-lanceolate, plicate, acute. Pseudo-bulbs oblong, corrugate-sulcate, obtuse. h. 1ft. East Indies, 1824. (B. R. 1777; H. E. F. 138; L. B. C. 1934.) P. pallida (pale). fl. white, smaller than in P. imbricata; bracts very round, blunt. l. also smaller. h. 6in. India, 1828. (B. R. 1213.)