Thismia clavigera (Beccari) von Müller

Firstly described by Beccari (1877) as Geomitra clavigera, together with another species, Geomitra episcopalis. G. clavigera is accepted by Jonker (1948), who, in contrast, list its sister species Geomitra episcopalis as Thismia episcopalis. Jonker (1948), hence, circumscribes the genus Geomitra different than Beccari (1877), namely through three appendages on the mitre-like fused outer tepals. Govaerts et al. (2007), probably taking Jonker (1948) as the last taxonomic reference on the asian representatives of this group, also list Geomitra as a valid, monospecific taxon. However, already (Stone 1980a) convincingly argued to re-establish Thismia clavigera, to which it has been transferred by von Müller (1891). Also Maas-van de Kamer (1998) rejects Geomitra as a genus name. Even the early authors Engler (1889) and Schlechter (1921) fuse Geomitra with Bagnisia, the latter of which also according to Jonker (1938, 1948) is synonymous to Thismia. More reasons for the fusion are explained on the page on Thismia, and last but not least molecular data as well speak for the synonymy of Geomitra (Merckx et al. 2006).
For 114 years this species was only known from the type location at Mount Gadin on Kalimantan. 1979 it was rediscovered in Kedah, northerm Malay peninsula (Stone 1980a), and from Aceh in northern Sumatra Stone (1980b). Almost 30 years later, T. clavigera was also found on Tarutao Island/Thailand (Chantanaorrapint & Chantanaorrapint 2009), which is about 150 km northwest of Kedah and 400 km northeast of Aceh.