Govenia dressleriana E.W.Greenw. 1993

TYPE Drawing

TYPE Photos/TYPE Drawing Greenwood © and The Herbario AMO Website

LATER EARLIER

Common Name Dressler's Govenia [American Botanist in Costa Rica and Panama current]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Chiapas, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Oaxaca, and Sinaloa states of Mexico and Guatemala usually in the transition zone between tropical deciduous and oak forests at elevations of 1400 to 2000 meters as a large sized, cool growing terrestrial with a subglobose, light brownish yellow corm, stemless, giving rise to 4, from the lower nodes of the corm, tubular, concentric, alternate, distichous, blunty obtuse, successively longer upwards, to 12.8" [to ca. 32 cm] long, 1.28" [3.2 cm] diameter, the bases splitting as the corm develops, margins entire; many veined, the veins slightly raised externally, forming low keels, sunken in grooves on the inner surface; surfaces finely ridged, lustrous, finely colliculate, the cells in longitudinal rows, slightly elongate on the outer surface, much less so internally; red, the veins darker, paler where covered and on the inner surface sheaths and carrying 2, from the uppermost nodes of the corm, petiolate, articulated, ascending, arcuate, to ca. 90 cm tall, blade plicate, thin, ascending, gently arcuate, obovate, acute, to 24" [to ca. 60 cm] long, 9.2" [ 23 cm] wide; margins entire; many-veined, the three main veins forming prominent, narrow, round - topped keels on the lower surface, deciduous leaves, that blooms in the later spring through earlier summer with the leaves present, on an erect, lateral, from a upper internode of the corm usually between the outer petiole and the inner sheath, erect, fleshy stiff, round, to about 36" [ to ca. 90 cm] tall including the inflorescence, with a solitary, usually above the middle, tubular base, the blade somewhat inflated, acute, usually shrivelling at flowering bract, rachis thick, stiff, tapering above, nearly round, medium green, erect, to 12" [30 cm] long, rather densely, successively to 50 flowered inflorescence with long, narrow, spreading, brcoming pendent along the rachis as the flowers age, red brown veined, sub-ligulate when flattened, acuminate, 3 to 7 veined floral bracts and carrying showy, resupinate, outward facing, warm to greenish brown flowers

"Lindley's description of G lagernophora (1839) is meager, only on descriptive notes and sketches in a letter from Mexico. The letter gave no information on the flower, but did emphasize the inflated basal sheaths. Later authors missed this critical point, and applied the name to several other species. The treatments of G. lagenophora between Lindley's and Dressler's publications should be ignored. In the only site in Oaxaca for G. lagenophora, G. dressleriana grows intermingled with it, and the two f1ower at the same time. The warm brown f1owers of the latter contrast strongly with the dull red and green f1owers of G. lagenophora. G dressleriana is a typical Govenia, with the characteristic pair of large, plicate leaves, but its cylindrical raceme of warm brown to greenish brown f1owers makes it the only species known with f1owers of that colour." Greeenwood 1993

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orquídea (Méx.) 13(1-2): 165-172. Greenwood 1993.Drawing/photo fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 44-45 pg 2763 - 2898 Brieger 2001; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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