Pachites

{{Short description|Genus of flowering plants belonging to the orchid family}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| image = Pachites bodkinii 58138394.jpg

| image_caption = Pachites bodkinii

| image2 = Harry Bolus - Orchids of South Africa - volume I plate 076 (1896).jpg

| image2_caption = Botanical illustration of Pachites appressus

| display_parents = 3

| parent_authority = G.Z.Chen, Z.J.Liu & S.P.Chen

| taxon = Pachites

| authority = Lindl.

}}

Pachites is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It contains two known species, both endemic to South Africa.Hans Peter Linder and Hubert Kurzweil. 1999. Orchids of Southern Africa. 504 pages. A. A. Balkema. {{ISBN|978-90-5410-445-2}}.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. (See External links below). One of these, Pachites appressus, is very rare.Richard J. Waterman, Anton Pauw, Timothy G. Barraclough, and Vincent Savolainen. 2009. "Pollinators underestimated: A molecular phylogeny reveals widespread floral convergence in oil-secreting orchids (sub-tribe Coryciinae) of the Cape of South Africa". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 51(1):100-110. {{doi|10.1016/j.ympev.2008.05.020}}.

Pachites was named by John Lindley in 1835.Pachites in International Plant Names Index. (see External links below).John Lindley. 1830-1840. The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants: page 301. Ridgeways, Piccadilly: London, UK. (See External links below). The name is derived from the Greek word pachys, meaning "thick, stout", and refers to the rostellum.Umberto Quattrocchi. 2000. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, volume III. CRC Press: Baton Rouge, New York, London, Washington DC. {{ISBN|978-0-8493-2673-8}} (set). (see External links below).

In Genera Orchidacearum volume 2, Pachites and Satyrium constitute the subtribe Satyriinae of the tribe Diseae.Alec M. Pridgeon, Phillip J. Cribb, Mark W. Chase, and Finn N. Rasmussen. 1999-2014. Genera Orchidacearum Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-850513-6}} (volume 1), {{ISBN|978-0-19-850710-9}} (volume 2), {{ISBN|978-0-19-850711-6}} (volume 3), {{ISBN|978-0-19-850712-3}} (volume 4), {{ISBN|978-0-19-850713-0}} (volume 5), {{ISBN|978-0-19-964651-7}} (volume 6). (See External links below). After that work was published in 2001, molecular phylogenetic studies showed that Pachites does not form a clade with Satyrium.Benny Bytebier, Timotheűs van der Niet, Dirk U. Bellstedt, and Hans Peter Linder. 2008. "The phylogenetic position of the enigmatic orchid genus Pachites". South African Journal of Botany 74(2):306-312. {{doi|10.1016/j.sajb.2008.01.002}}. Instead, Pachites occupies a basal position in Diseae. In spite of the papers published in 2008 and 2009, uncertainties remain over the exact relationships of Pachites to other genera. In a classification of orchids that was published in 2015, Pachites, Disa, and Huttonaea constitute the subtribe Disinae of the tribe Orchideae.Mark W. Chase, Kenneth M. Cameron, John V. Freudenstein, Alec M. Pridgeon, Gerardo A. Salazar, Cássio van den Berg, and André Schuiteman. 2015. "An updated classification of Orchidaceae". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 177(2):151-174. (See External links below). This circumscription of Disinae, however, was done provisionally, to avoid creating new subtribes before further studies could determine, with increased certainty, the true affinities of these three genera.