Mormolyca peruviana C. Schweinf. 1944 Photo by © Eric Hunt and his Orchid Species Photo Website

Common Name The Peruvian Mormolyca

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Peru in wet montane forests at elevations of 650 to 1800 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with transversly ellipsoid, 4 obtuse angled ridges, shiny pseudobulbs subtended by several, scarious, leaf-bearing sheaths carrying a single, apical, narrowly lanceolate, acute, gradually narrowing below into the short, conduplicate base leaf that blooms on a 1 1/4" to 3 1/4" [3 to 8 cm] long, slender, terete, single flowered inflorescence arising on a newly matured pseudobulb and subtended by a tubular, acuminate bract and several basal, close, imbricating bracts occuring in the summer.

This species differs from the more common Mormolyca ringens by having larger flowers and the elongate side lobes of the lip.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 122 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen lieferung 29 1777 - 1840 Brieger 1994 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orquideas del Peru Freuler 2010 photo fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------