Sigmatostalix picta Rchb. f. 1859 Photo Courtesy of © Jay Pfahl

Flower Closeup Photos Courtesy of Dalton Holland Baptista

Alba Variety Photo by © Arturo Carillo

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Common Name The Painted Sigmatostalix

Flower Size 5/8" [1.4 cm]

This miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphytic species is found at elevations of 500 to 2200 meters in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador along the Andes in wet montane cloud forests with flattened, ovate pseudobulbs enveloped basally by several imbricating, leaf-bearing sheaths and carries a single apical, narrowly elliptic, conduplicate towards the petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on an erect, basal up through the leaf sheaths, several flowered raceme or occasional panicle that is longer than the leaves. Closely related to S guatemalensis and separated by geography more than anything

Synonyms Oncidium pictoides Chase & NH Wms. 2008; Sigmatostalix lunata Schltr. 1916; Sigmatostalix poikilostalix Kraenzl. 1922

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 302 Dodson 1980; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998; AOS Bulletin Vol 71 No 4 2002 photo; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004; Orchid Species Culture Oncidium/Odontoglossum Alliance Bakers 2006; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 No 12 2008 as Oncidium pictoides

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