!Lycaste dowiana Endr. & Rchb.f. 1874 SECTION Lycaste
Photo by Pieter C. Brouwer
Photo by Daniel Jimenez
to 
Common Name Dow's Lycaste [ English Orchid Enthusiast and Ship Captain 1800's]
Flower Size 1 1/5" [3 cm]
Found in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama at elevations around 700 to 1400 meters in cloud forests as a medium to large sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with slightly compressed, ovoid, rugose pseudobulbs without apical spines after leaf fall carrying 4 to 6, apical and sheathed, elliptic-lanceolate, plicate, shortly acuminate leaves that gradually narrow into a petiole below that blooms at most any time of the year on a basal, thin, flexible, 3 1/4 to 3 1/2" [8 to 9 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence that is enveloped by 4 inflated bracts.
Part of the L macrophylla complex consisting of L leucantha, L fuscina, L guatemalensis, L leucantha, L macrophylla, L measuresiana, Lycaste occulta, L panamensis, L puntarenasensis, L x sanderae, L viridescens, L xanthocheila, L xytriophora, ,
Synonyms Lycaste dowiana var. isabelii Archila 2003; Lycaste dowiana var labello-alba Oakley 2008; Lycaste dowiana var viridis Oakley 2008
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 15 # 6 1946 photo fide; The Genus Lycaste Fowlie 1970; AOS Bulletin Vol 52 #9 1983 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 53 No 2 1984 photo; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 829 Dodson 1983 drawing ok; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen lieferung 29 1777 - 1840 Brieger 1994; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchid Digest Vol 71 #4 2007 photo fide; Lycaste, Ida and Anguloa The Essential Guide Oakley 2008; Orchid Digest Vol 78 #4 2014 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as L dowiana var Isabeliae; AOS Bulletin Vol 88 #10 2019 photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
Lycaste dowiana var. isabelii Archila 2003; Lycaste dowiana var viridis
Photo courtesy of © Piotr Markiewicz
This species has a lack of all red pigment in the lip but has green sepals.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lycaste, Ida and Anguloa The Essential Guide Oakley 2008
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