!Coelia triptera (Sm.) G. Don ex Steud. 1840 Photo by © Lourens Grobler.

Inflorescence Photo courtesy of Noble Bashor

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Common Name or Meaning The Three Winged Coelia

Flower Size 1/2" [1.5 cm]

Vera Cruz Mex., 1372m to 1400 meters elev., Near Huestaca, This species is a medium sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte or lithophytic herb with clustered, ovoid to ellipsoid, olive green psudobulbs carrying up to 5 apical, subplicate, coriaceous, linear-elliptic, acuminate leaves that occurs at 500 to 1400 meters in pine-oak, liquambar forests and mountain rainforests in Central America, Cuba and Jamaica where it blooms in the late winter and spring with a lax or crowded, basal, 4 to 10" [10 to 26 cm] long, bracteate raceme arising on a mature psuedobulb carrying very fragrant flowers that do not open well, found high in trees along streams, and becoming very dense masses of plants.

Synonyms Coelia baueriana Lindl. 1830; Coelia glacialis Van Houtte 1841; Cymbidium tripterum [J.J.Sm.]Sw. 1799; *Epidendrum tripterum Sm. 1793

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Orchidacearum I Plate 9 Salazar 1990