Prosthechea fusca [Schlechter] Bennet & Christ. 2001
Photo by Carlos Hajek and his Peruvian Orchid Page
Drawing by Alcantara/Bennett & Christenson
Common Name The Dark Prosthechea [refers to the somber brown color of the flower]
Flower Size 1 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 2500 meters as a medium sized, cold growing epiphytewith slender, cylindric-fusiform pseudobulbs partially enveloped basally by several close, scarious, imbricate sheaths and carrying 2 to 3 oblong, retuse, coriaceous, tapering gradually below into basally clasping leaves that blooms in nature in the spring on a terminal pendunculate, laxly flowered, 9 1/4" [23 cm] long, racemose inflorescence arising on a fully matured pseudobulb with 8 to 10 non-resupinate, fleshy flowers.
This species can be mistaken for Prosthechea bennettii but it has a trilobed lip with the mid lobe is markedly smaller than the laterals and half as broad as the midlobe of P fusca which appear subequal in size to the laterals.
SynonymsAnacheilium fuscum [Schlechter] Withner & Harding 2004 Encyclia fusca (Schltr.) D.E. Benn. & Christenson 1998 ; *Epidendrum fuscum Schlechter 1921; Prosthechea fusca [Schlechter] Bennet & Christ. 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 9: 84 Schlechter 1921 as Epidendrum fuscum;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. Figuren-Atlas 57: 463 Schlechter 1929 as Epidendrum fuscum drawing fide;
Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 442 Bennet & Christenson 1998 as Encyclia fusca drawing ok;
Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 750 Bennett & Christenson 2001 as Prosthechea fusca in comments of P hajekii;
*The Cattleyas and Their Relatives, the Debateable Epidendrum Withner and Harding 2004;
LANKESTERIANA 14(1) 2014 as Epidendrum fuscum
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