Tall Puzatka

Family Orchidaceae. Relict species, preserved since the Tertiary period. It grows in damp broad-leaved forests and riverside willow thickets in China, Korea, and Japan.

Achlorophyllous plant (saprophyte), with a horizontal tuberous-thickened rhizome lacking roots, and a stem with scaly, stem-enveloping dark-brown leaves. Stem thick, 50-100 cm tall, glabrous, brownish. Raceme 15-25 cm long, 2.5-3.5 cm wide, rather sparse. Bracts linear, acute, equal to or longer than the ovary, up to 1.6 cm long. Pedicels short, up to 2.5 mm long. Perianth tubular; the outer and two inner segments are fused into a tube with five short blunt lobes, enclosing a free (attached only at the base) oblong, margin-fringed, whitish labellum. Column long, near the apex on the sides with two acute downward-curving teeth. Ovary 5-6 mm long. Flowers in July-August.

The rhizome does not serve for vegetative reproduction. Throughout its life the rhizome of Puzatka grows from north to south by 0.8-1.0 cm per year. Older sections of the rhizome thicken and it acquires a club-shaped form. The flowering stem appears in the 8th-10th (rarely 4th) year after seed germination, usually in the second half of summer, when air temperature and precipitation reach their maximum. The flowering stem grows for 50-70 days, resulting in one (rarely several) raceme of flowers. After seed maturation the plant dies (monocarpic). Seeds are dispersed long distances by monsoon winds and germinate the following spring.