Cattleya iricolor Rchb. f. 1874 SUBGENUS Stellata Withner 1988
Photo by © Jay Pfahl
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Drawing by © J Perez C
to 
LATE 
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Common Name Rainbow-colored Cattleya
Flower Size 3.2" [8 cm]
Found in Peru and Ecuador in the eastern Andes as an ascending, unifoliate epiphyte in wet montane forests, high up in tall tree branches at elevations of 400 to 1220 meters and is a rare, hot to cool growing, erect epiphytic species with clavate, slightly compressed pseudobulbs that become sulcate with age and carries a single, apical, narrowly oblong-elliptic or oblong, acute, conduplicate towards the base, coriaceous leaf that blooms in the late winter and spring on a terminal, erect, 2 1/2" [6.25 cm] long, few [6 to 10] flowered inflorescence arising from a conduplicate sheath on a newly emerging pseudobulb and is held at mid-leaf.
Characterized by the straw yellow flowers with bands of yellow, red and white on the lip, It is unique in the genus by having a shortly acute lip below the middle."
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ;
* Gard. Chron., n.s., 2: 162 Rchb.f 1874
Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 10 576 - 632 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977;
The Catttleya and their Relatives Withner Vol 1 1988 photo fide;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 411 Dodson 1982 drawing fide;
Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide;
The Manual of Cultivated Orchids Bechtel, Cribb and Laurent 1992 drawing/photo fide;
Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 011 Bennet & Christenson 1993 drawing fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 photo fide;
Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995;
AOS Bulletin Vol 73 No 6 2004 photo fide;
Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 75 # 3 2006 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide;
Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 photo fide;
Orchid Digest Vol 79 #4 2015 photo fide;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol IV: 471 Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023 as Drawing/photo fide;
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