Brachycorythis macrantha (Lindl.) Summerh 1955
Plant Photos by Vincent Droissart and His West African Orchid Website
Common Name or Meaning The Large Flowered Bracycorythis
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo, Liberia, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Cameroon and Gabon in forests on hillsides near rivers or on mossy rocks at elevations of 240 to 1600 meters as a medium sized, hot to cool growing terrestrial with a leafy stem carrying broadly lanceolate, decreasing in size up the stem into the bract like leaves that blooms in the winter on an erect, terminal, leafy inflorescence carrying several flowers.
This orchid likes to dry out and die back after blooming, resume normal care with arrival of new growths in the spring.
Synonyms Eulophia helleborina Hook.f. 1870; *Gymnadenia macrantha Lindl. 1835; Habenaria helleborina (Hook.f.) G.Nicholson 1886; Phyllomphax helleborina (Hook.f.) Schltr. 1919; Phyllomphax macrantha (Lindl.) Summerh. 1938; Platanthera helleborina (Hook.f.) Rolfe 1898
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Xenia Orchidaceae vol 2 Rchb.f 1874 as Gymnadenia macrantha Drawing fide; Xenia Orchidaceae Vol 3 Reichenbach 1890 as Gymnadenia macrantha drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 32 # 10 1963 as Phyllomphax helleborine; African Orchids In Cultivation and The Wild La Croix 1997; Les Orchidees de Cote d'Ivorie Perez-Vera 2003 photo/drawing fide; Flore du Gabon Vol 36 Szlachetko etal 2004 drawing fide;
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
