!Barkeria uniflora (La Llave & Lex.) Dressler & Halb. 1977 Photo Courtesy of © Allen Black

Barkeria elegans Photo by Lourens Grobler ©

Inflorescence Photo Courtesy of Robert Weyman Bussey

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Common Name Single-flowered Barkeria

Flower Size 2 3/4" [5.6 cm]

This small epiphyte from Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacan, Mexico, Guerrero and Oaxaca states of Mexico at elevations of 670 to 1300 meters and is found on trees and shrubs along dry creekbeds with as a miniature to large sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with a very thin, 4 to 9 noded pseudobulb carrying 2 to 7 distichous, very fleshy, linear to lanceolate, acuminate to subacute, olive green lined with purple leaves and blooms on an apical, racemose to paniculate, few flowered each, 2 to 3 branched, to 2 to 20" [5 to 50 cm] long, several [1 to 20] successively 1 to 3 flowered inflorescence enveloped by a few bracts and has ovate, obtuse to acute, concave, brown, scarious floral bracts that occurs in the fall and winter in cultivations and late spring in nature. This is the type species for the genus.

Synonyms Barkeria elegans Knowles & Westcott 1838; Epidendrum elegans [Knowles & Westcott] Rchb.f 1862; *Pachyphyllum uniflorum La LLave & Lex. 1825

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 26 No 10 1957 drawing as B elegans; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 9 1958 drawing as B elegans; AOS Bulletin Vol 31 No 3 1962 as B elegans; Orchid Digest Vol 44 No 2 1980 photo; Orchids of Guatemala and Belize Ames & Correll 1985 as Barkeria elegans; Minature Orchids Northen 1980 as Barkeria elegans; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1993 as Barkeria elegans; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1982 as Epidendrum elegans; Illustrated Encyclopoedia of Orchids Pridgeon 1982 as Barkeria elegans; An Introduction to the Orchids Of Mexico Wiard 1987 as Barkeria elegans; Cattleya and Their Relatives Vol 5 Withner 1998; Australian Orchid Review Vol 69 No 6 2004/5 photo; Icones Orchidacearum fascile 10 plate 1008 Hagsater & Soto 2008

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