Cottonia

Cottonia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae: the only known species is Cottonia peduncularis. It is native to India and Sri Lanka. The genus was erected by Robert Wight and named after Major Frederick Cotton, an amateur botanist who served in the Madras Engineer Group and collected the species from Tellichery. A coloured illustration of the plant had been sent to Wight by Thomas C. Jerdon.^[2][3][4][5]

Cottonia
1890 illustration from Curtis's Botanical Magazine
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Monocots
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Orchidaceae
Subfamily:	Epidendroideae
Tribe:	Vandeae
Subtribe:	Aeridinae
Genus:	Cottonia Wight
Species:	C. peduncularis
Binomial name
Cottonia peduncularis (Lindl.) Rchb.f.
Synonyms[1]
Vanda peduncularis Lindl. Cottonia macrostachya Wight Vanda bicaudata Thwaites

This epiphytic orchid has a lip shaped like a hairy bee (as in the well-known Ophrys apifera) giving it the name of bee-orchid but, unlike species in the genus Ophrys, no specific bee pollinator has been identified. It was first described as Vanda peduncularis by Lindley.^[3][6]

See also

• List of Orchidaceae genera