IOSPE PHOTOS

Brassavola subulifolia Lindley 1831 SUBGENUS Brassavola SECTION Cuneilabia

Photo by © Allen Black

Drawing by © Hooker

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Common Name Heart-lipped Brassavola

Flower Size 1.64" [4.15 cm]

Found in Jamaica as a medium sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with robust, terete, clavate, 2 to 3 noded, erect or ascending stems carrying a single, apical, erect, often slightly arcuate, shiny, deep green, thickly fleshy, semicylindric, linear-lanceolate, acute, deeply channeled leaves that blooms in the late summer to fall on a branched, 6" [15 cm] long, racemose inflorescence that carries up to 6 long-lived flowers that smell of citrus only at night.

Grows best mounted on wood and likes some shade and watering while in growth and a lessening after the psuedobulbs have matured and the plant has flowered.

This plant was formerly and popularly known as Brassavola cordata Lindley 1836 and is actually correctly named Brassavola subulifolia Lindley 1831 which was an obscure earlier publication that came to light more recently.

B harrisii was proposed by Jones to accomodate the western Jamaican B subulifolia plants that have larger [more than 2.6" [6.5 cm] wide] flowers in larger numbers [14 to 16] per inflorescence and leaves that are about 12" [30 cm] long than the eastern Jamaican variety that have flowers less that 2.6" [6.5 cm] wide and in smaller numbers per inflorescence [3 to 8] with leaves about 8" [20 cm] long. I follow Ackerman [2000/2014] in keeping the 2 varieties as a single species.

Synonyms Bletia cordata [Lindley] Rchb.f 1862; Bletia nodosa var cordata [Lindley] Rchb.f 1863; Brassavola cordata Lindley 1836; Brassavola harrisii H.G.Jones 1968; Brassavola nodosa Hkr. not Lindley 1833; Brassavola nodosa subsp. cordata (Lindl.) N.H. Williams; Brassavola sloanei Griseb. 1864; Brassavola stricta Hort 1885; Lysimnia bicolor Raf. 1836

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Gen. Sp. Orchid. Pl.: 115 Lindley 1831

Bot. Mag. 60: t. 3229 Hooker 1833 as B nodosa nom. illeg.

Bot. Mag. 60: t. 3229 Hooker 1833 as B nodosa nom. illeg. drawing fide;

Edwards's Bot. Reg. 22: t. 1913

Edwards's Bot. Reg. 22: t. 1913 Lindley 1836 as B cordata drawing fide;

Fl. Tellur. 4: 43 Raf. 1838 as Lysimnia bicolor;

Ann. Bot. Syst. 6: 436 Rchb.f 1862 as Bletia cordata;

Xenia Orchidaceae vol 2: 65 Rchb.f 1863 as Bletia cordata;

Fl. Brit. W. I.: 620 Griseb. 1864 as B sloanei

Gard. Chron., n.s., 23: 501 T Moore & Mast. 1885 as B stricta;

Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909;