Govenia rubellilabia García-Cruz 2006 TYPE Drawing by © Garcia-Cruz & Sosa A new species of Govenia (Orchidaceae) from Chiapas, Mexico

Full shade Cold LATE Spring EARLYSummer

Common Name The Reddish Lip Govenia

Flower Size .6 to .8" [1.5 to 2 cm] tall

Found in Chiapas state of Mexico in transition between oak/pine and evergreen forests in rich organic soils at elevations around 2200 meters as a just medium sized, cold growing terrestrial with subglobose corms giving rise to 3 to 4, tubular, successively larger above sheathing bracts and carrying 2, apical, ascending-arcuate, elliptic to obovate, plicate, entire to obscurely undulate, sharply acuminate, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late spring and early summer on a terminal, erect, with a solitary, narrow, tubular scarioous membraneous bract, racemose, 12 to 14" [30 to 35 cm] long, rachis to 4" [10 cm] long, 8 to 13 flowered inflorescence with a sessile, half as long as the ovary, triangular, acute, margin entire floral bracts and carrying ascending, showy flowers with the sepals and petals greenish-yellow , the dorsal sepal and the petals with shades of red on both surfaces, the lateral sepals tinged with red only on the adaxial side, the adaxial surface of the lip is reddish, the abaxail side is white and there are no marginal apical spots.

"Govenia rubellilabia differs considerablyfrom other species of the genus although it re-sembles G. matudae E.W.Greenw. & SotoArenas, which was collected in the same area.Both species grow sympatrically and ?owersimultaneously. The two species have similar?ower size, reddish sepals and petals, and la-bella with an ovate-elliptic outline. However,G. matudae has a larger raceme, from 11cmto 19 cm long (vs. 10 cm long in the newspecies), with 20–40 ?owers (vs. 8–13 in G.rubellilabia), and its tepals are yellowish,while the lip is basically brown with 3 reddishbrown spots in the apex margin (vs. green-yellowish tepals, lip reddish without spots inthe apex margin in the new species)." Garcia-Cruz 2014 A new species of Govenia (Orchidaceae)... (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250070045_A_new_species_of_Govenia_Orchidaceae_from_Chiapas_Mexico [accessed Apr 19 2018].

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Brittonia 58(3):259-263 Garcia-Cruz July 2006 drawing fide

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