Cattleyopsis ortgiesiana (Rchb. f.) Cogn. 1910 Photo By Jay Pfahl and text courtesy of Claude Hamilton and HAMLYN ORCHIDS LIMITED, Jamaica

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Common Name Ortgies Cattleyopsis [German Cultivator of Species in 1800's]

Flower Size 1 3/4" [3 cm]

This species is sometimes confused with Broughtonia sanguinea by some taxonomists, especially those who may have seen the flowers and not the entire plant. Though the flowers are fairly similar in form and size, the lip in Ctps. ortgiesiana always completely encircles the column, a feature which never occurs in Bro. sanguinea. There are of course several obvious differences in the leaves, ie. serrated edges, roots, and pseudobulbs. It is found in Cuba as a medium sized, warm to hot growing epiphyte with clustered, cylindric to pyriform, annulate, sulcate pseuodbubls enveloped basally by several scarious sheaths and carrying 2 apical, fleshy, rigid, linear-oblong top ligulate obtuse or obliquely emarginate, denticulate apically leaf that blooms on a slender terminal, 3 1/2' [105 cm] long, arching, sometimes branching inflorescence with apically clustered, to 20, showy, flattened flowers occuring in the late winter and early spring.

Synonyms *Bletia ortgiesiana Rchb. f. 1860; Broughtonia ortgiesiana (Rchb. f.) Dressler 1966

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Miniature Orchids Northen 1980; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005 as Broughtonia ortgesiana; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000 as Broughtonia ortgesiana; The Cattleya and their Relatives Withner Vol 4 1996; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995; Manual of Cultivated Orchids Bechtel, Cribb & Laurent 1982; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1987; Flora's Orchids Nash & La Croix 2005; Botanica's Orchids Laurel ZGlen 2002;