Microchilus major C.Presl 1827
Drawing by © Bennett & Christenson and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Drawing by © Dodson and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
MID 
Common Name The Large Microchilus [refers to the leaves]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, Ecuador and Peru in cool wet cloud forests at elevations of 600 to 2500 meters as a medium sized [in flower], warm to cold growing terrestrial with a decumbent, becoming erect stem carrying 5, spiraling up the stem, well spaced, lanceolate, acuminate, mottled light and dark green, petiolate base leaves clustered towards the apex that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, terminal, racemose, long pedunculate, pubescent, to 8" [20 cm] long, rachis initially club-like elongating and becoming cylindric with age, successively several, many flowered inflorescence with ovate, obtuse, pubescent, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying small, tubular, spirally arranged flowers.
" Microchilus moritzii seems to be the closest to M major but can be easily distinguished from the later by having a somewhat longer and more swollen spur, a somewhat thickened basal part of the hypochile, shorter leaves and longer floral bracts which are glabrous other than the margins."
Synonyms Erythrodes major (C.Presl) Ames 1922; Physurus major (C.Presl) Schltr. 1921; Physurus preslii Lindl. 1840
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Reliq. Haenk. 1: 94 C Presl. 1827
Gen. Sp. Orchid. Pl.: 501 Lindley 1840 as Physurus preslii nom. illeg.
Studies in the family Orchidaceae Vol VII: 72 Ames 1922 as Erythrodes major;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 9: 132 Schlechter 1921 as Physurus major
Orchids of Peru Vol 1: 154 Schweinfurth 1958 as Erythrodes major;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 as Erythrodes major drawing fide;
Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 as Erythrodes major;
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum plate 101 Dodson 1980 as Erythrodes major drawing hmm;
Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 477 Bennett & Christenson 1998 as Erythrodes major drawing fide;
Macchu Picchu Orchids Christenson 2003 as Erythrodes major;
Orchids of the Department of Valle del Cauca Vol 1 Kolanowski & Szlachetko 2012 drawing ok;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 326 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 drawing fide;
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