Acampe

Vandeae subtribe Aeridinae

Large coarse monopodial epiphytes and lithophytes. Stems elongate, branching, stout, leafy. Leaves alternate, distichous, rigid, leathery, obliquely bilobed at the apex. Inflorescences short axillary racemes or panicles, often densely subcapitate. Flowers cupped, fleshy-brittle, the sepals and petals yellow with brown transverse bars, the lip white. Sepals and petals subsimilar, free, spreading. Lip obscurely three-lobed, with a transverse ridge below the midlobe, with a subsaccate to elongate spur. Column very short; pollinia 4, in two unequal pairs on a linear stipe and a viscidium.

From the Greek akampes, meaning rigid, probably alluding to the inflexible flowers.

A genus of about four species native from East Africa and Madagascar to Malaysia.

Seidenfaden, G. 1976. (382) proposal to conserve the genus name Acampe Lindl. 1853, over Sarcanthus Lindl. 1824, not Sarcanthus Lindl. 1826. Taxon 25(1):190.

Seidenfaden, G. 1977. Thalia Marava and the rigid air-blossom. Bot. Mus. Leafl. 25(2):49-69.