Cyrtochilum diodon (Rchb. f.) Kraenzl. 1917
SECTION Cimicifera Lindley
Photo by © Guido Deburghgraeve and his Flickr Photo Website
Photo by © Gary Yong Gee and his Orchid Photo Website
Common Name or Meaning The Two-Toothed Cyrtochilum
Flower Size .5" [1.25 cm]
Found in Ecuador and Peru in wet, cloud forests at elevations around 2400 to 2600 meters as a medium sized, cold growing orchid with slightly flattened pseudobulbs enveloped, basally by 8 to 10, imbricating, deciduous, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying 2 apical, oblong elliptic, acute, narrowing and becoming conduplicate towards the base that blooms in the winter on a basal, arching, to 63" [160 cm] long, paniculate inflorescence with several branches [each branch 6 to 12 flowered] that often form secondary branches all carrying many small flowers and arising on a newly matured pseudobulb through a leaf bearing sheath often after the leaf has fallen off.
This species, C murinum, C porrigens and C umbonatum are all very similar and may all be in one variable species complex but I have kept them separate for now.
Synonyms *Oncidium diodon Rchb.f 1880; Oncidium sodiroi Schltr. 1922; Trigonochilum diodon (Rchb. f.) Königer & Schildhauer 1994
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Das Pflanzenreich Odontoglossum/Oncidium Kranzlin 1922 drawing good; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Orchids of Peru Plate 0124 Dodson & Bennett 1989 as Oncidium diodon drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 33 - 36 2057 - 2308 Brieger 1997 as Trigonochilum diodon photo fide; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 2 2001; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 as Oncidium diodon photo fide; Orquideologia Vol. 23 No 2 2004 as Oncidium diodon; The Pictoral Encyclopedia of Oncidium Zelenko 2003 drawing ok; Flora's Orchids Nash & La Croix 2005 as C sp pg 131 photo fide; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium/Odontoglossum alliance Bakers 2006; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 photo fide
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