Dichaea obovatipetala Folsom 1994 SECTION Dichaea Photo by © Franco Pupulin.

LATE

Common NameThe Obovate Leaf Dichaea

Flower Size 1/2" [1.2 cm]

Found only in Panama in moist forests on shady tree trunks at elevations around 100 to 700 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with one to many, pendant stems enveloped completely by leaf bearing sheaths carrying close, spreading, dark olive, broadly ovate-lanceolate, marginally smooth-hyaline, basally clasping leaves that blooms in the late summer through winter on a .25 to .3" [6 to 8 mm] long, single flowered inflorescence carrying a single, fragrant [vanilla] flower.

Sometimes cited as a synonym of D muricata, I have followed Pupulin here for now.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Las Orquedias de El Salvador Vol 1 Hamer 1988 as D muricata; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; *Orchid Digest Vol 58 No 4 1994 drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Pupulin 2005 photo fide; Genera Orchidacearum Vol 5 Epidendroideae Part 2 Pridgeon, Cribb, Chase and Rasmusen 2009 photo fide;

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