Spiranthes torta (Thunb.) Garay & H.R.Sweet 1974

Photos courtesy of © Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz and their Website

FragrantPart shadeHot Warm LATEwinter Spring

Common Name The Twisted Spiranthes

Flower Size .15" [3 mm]

Found in Florida, Bermuda, Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Fr Guiana? on damp shady banks and in pastures at elevations around sealevel to 1500 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to warm growing terrestrial with numerous, elongate tuberoids giving rise to an erect, stem enveloped by 7 remote, tubular below, lanceolate above sheaths and carrying basal, membraneaceous, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate leaves that blooms in the late winter and spring on an erect, slender, spirally twisted, puberulent, to 8" [to 20 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence carrying often fragrant flowers that are arranged in one row that twists around the inflorescence.

Synonyms Gyrostachys apiculata (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891; Ibidium quinquelobatum (Poir.) Acuña 1939; Ibidium tortilis (Sw.) House 1906; Neottia quadridentata Willd. 1805; Neottia tortilis Sw. 1805; Ophrys peruviana Aubl. 1775; Ophrys quinquelobata Poir. 1798; *Ophrys torta Thunb.1791; Satyrium spirale Sw. 1788; Spiranthes amesiana Schltr. 1920; Spiranthes apiculata Lindl. 1840; Spiranthes laxiflora Raf. 1837; Spiranthes quadridentata (Willd.) Lindl. 1824; Spiranthes quinquelobata (Poir.) Urb. 1918; Spiranthes swartzii E.H.L.Krause 1914; Spiranthes tortilis (Sw.) Rich. 1817; Triorchis spiralis House 1920

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Vol 1 Ames 1905; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 drawing fide; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as S apiculata drawing fide; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as S quinquelobata; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960 as Spiranthes tortilis; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; The Native Orchids of Florida Luer 1972 as S tortilis drawing/photos fide; Flora of the Lesser Antilles Garay & Sweet 1974 drawing ok; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1176 Hamer 1984 drawing ok as S amesiana; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1178 Hamer 1984 drawing ok; An Orchid Flora of Peurto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995; Harvard Pap. Bot. 5 #2: Carnevali etal. 2001; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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