Cranichis polyantha Schlechter 1920
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Photo by © Gary Yong Gee and his Gary Yong Gee Photo Website
Photo by © Patricia Harding
Common Name or Meaning The Many Flowered Cranichis
Flower Size .16" [4 mm]
Found in Colombia and Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 1000 to 2650 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial with 2 to 3, lanceolate, acute, thick, fleshy leaves with an elongate, channeled petiole that blooms in the summer on an erect, scapose, densely many flowered, 17 1/2" [to 44 cm] long, racemose inflorescence with 2 to 4, leaf-like, infundibuliform, membraneous, green bracts with tubular bases and basally clasping all carrying nonresupinate flowers.
Distinguished by the foliaceous peduncle, the glabrous ovary, the fleshy lip with a distinct membraneous margin, the 3 nerved, papillose-verrucose disc, the minutely ciliolate margin, more or less obliquely elliptic, obtuse to rounded petals and the 3 nerved dorsal sepal.
Synonyms Cranichis polyantha var. caquetaensis Renz 1948
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten II Colombia Schlechter 1920; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 47: 19 1929 drawing fide; Flora Brasilica Vol XII II 13-43 Hoehne 1945; Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 424 Dodson 1989 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 224 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing fide; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005 drawing fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing fide
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