Burbidgea is a small genus of tropical rhizomatous herbs in the family Zingiberaceae, the ginger family. All five currently accepted species are endemic to the island of Borneo, making it one of the more geographically restricted genera within this large and diverse family.
Like other members of Zingiberaceae, plants in this genus grow from underground rhizomes and produce the leafy, cane-like stems and sheathing leaves typical of the order. The genus is named after Frederick William Burbidge, the Victorian-era plant hunter who collected extensively in Borneo and introduced many Bornean species to cultivation in Europe.
The five accepted species — Burbidgea longiflora, B. nitida, B. pauciflora, B. schizocheila, and B. stenantha — are distributed across Sarawak and Sabah, the Malaysian states of Borneo. B. schizocheila is the most frequently cultivated and photographed species, recognizable by its distinctive split labellum (the name schizocheila means "split lip" in Greek).
Etymology
The genus name Burbidgea honors Frederick William Burbidge (1847–1905), a British plant collector and botanist employed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who gathered plant specimens extensively in Borneo during the 1870s. The species epithet schizocheila derives from the Greek schizo- (split) and cheila (lip), describing the divided labellum that characterizes that species.
Distribution
All five species of Burbidgea are endemic to the island of Borneo. Within Borneo, the genus is recorded from Sarawak (B. longiflora, B. nitida, B. pauciflora, B. schizocheila) and Sabah (B. schizocheila, B. stenantha), both states of Malaysian Borneo (East Malaysia).
