[2] Plants produce bright green, fleshy stems, 10–12 mm (0.39–0.47 in) in diameter, with large, glossy leaves.

[2] White, aerial roots form on the stems allowing the orchids to attach themselves to trees for support.

[3] As with many orchids, they produce showy flowers, which in the case of V. polylepis are white and yellow with a pink to maroon blotch.

The lip is a bright pink-purple colour and surrounds a 3–4.5 cm (1.2–1.8 in) column which contains the ovaries and also produces pollen at its tip.

[3] This species looks similar to Vanilla imperialis but can be distinguished by a series of scales on the lip and purple blotches rather than lines on the flower.

[4] This means it begins life as a free-standing plant on the forest floor but when it comes into contact with a tree or boulder it detaches itself from the soil and uses the tree/boulder as structure upon which to grow.

[3] Many orchids form symbiotic relationships with soil fungi in order to obtain the nutrients that they cannot synthesise themselves (mycoheterotrophy).

They have a pantropical distribution, being found throughout tropical Central and South America, Africa (including Madagascar) and Indonesia.

However, recent molecular work has suggested the group originated in South America around 34 million years ago, which is after the breaking up of the continents.

[4] Biologically it has also been difficult for taxonomists, as the group lacks clear, shared morphological features (synapomorphies).

[4] Many of the original species descriptions used only young plants, and as a result the morphological identifiers can no longer be applied to all specimens.

Morphology-based systems initially classified Vanilla within the subfamily Epidendroideae, due to its anther formation and method of pollen dispersal.

[13] However, more recent work has placed it in its own subfamily Vanilloideae, possibly the most ancient orchid lineage (apart from Apostasioideae).

[14] For a long time the genus Vanilla was divided in two sections, Foliosae and Aphyllae, based on the respective presence/absence of leaves.

[10][17] Both Vanilla and Pseudovanilla species are climbing plants, with adventitious roots and a shared ovary structure.

This would produce stronger vanilla crops, better equipped to cope with factors like climate change and invasive pests.

Firstly, as an epiphyte it is dependent on stable forests with large canopy trees in order to grow.

[3][4] Finally, it flowers so infrequently and irregularly that the species would take a long time to recover after drops in population size.

[4] V. polylepis has however been successfully cultivated in botanical gardens, meaning that ex-situ conservation could provide some form of protection for the species.

[21] The conservation status of V. polylepis has not been formally assessed and further field investigations are required to understand its population size and distribution.