Cranichis mexicana (A.Rich. & Galeotti) Schltr.1918 Ocampoa Group
Photos by © Carlos Velazco Macias
Drawing by © R Jimenez and Hagsater & Soto 2008
to 
Common Name The Mexican Ocampoa
Flower Size .25" [6.25 mm]
Found in Michoacan, Mexico, Guerrero, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Queretaro and Chiapas states of Mexico and Guatemala often in humus in crevasses and on slopes in pine-oak forests or evergreen cloud forests at elevations of 1700 to 2700 meters as a small to medium sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial or lithophyte with an erect, somewhat robust stem carrying a basal rosette of 2 to 5, withered or present at blooming, spotted to absent at blooming, oblong, elliptic or widely oblanceolate, smaller towards the apex becoming subcauline, acute to obtuse, upside green with a very fine slightly darker reticulation, downside grey green, carinate, margins slightly rippled, narrowing below into the channeled, short petiolate base leaves that blooms in the fall on an erect, to 12" [to 30 cm] long, glabrous to pubescent, cylindrical, densely many flowered inflorescence with tubular, acuminate, sometimes foliaceous bracts and ovate-lanceolate largely acuminate, basally pubescent, as long as to longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"The leaves withering or present at blooming, the dense cylindrical raceme, and the cymbidiform lip with a C-shaped lip claw are characereistic. The complex and different floral structurte with a long clawed navicular lip without branched colored veins, the sepals basally auriculate, the column lacking the wing-like margins found in all other Cranichis, the vegetative habit, the concolorous short petiolate leaves , a conspicuous, net of slightly raisedveines and a massive ;aterally compressed column suggest a closer relationship with Baskervilla and Ponthieva than with Cranichis." Hagsater & Soto 2008
Synonyms *Ocampoa mexicana A.Rich. & Galeotti 1845; Ponthieva mexicana (A.Rich. & Galeotti) Salazar 2009
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Ann. Sci. Nat. Ser III V III: 31 A Rich & Galleoti 1845 as Ocampoa mexicana
* Beih. Bot. Centralbl., Abt. 2. 36: 430 Schlechter 1918
Orchids of Guatemala and Belize: 84 Ames and Correll 1952;
Flora Novo-Galaciana Vol 16: 67 McVaugh 1985
Icones Orchidacearum 10: Plate 1055 Hagsater & Soto 2008 as Ocampoa mexicana drawing fide;
Ann. Bot. (Oxford) 104: 416 Salazar 2009 as Ponthieva mexicana
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