Isochilus bracteatus (Lex.) Espejo & López-Ferr. 2000

Photo Courtesy of © Edouard Faria

Full Shade Warm Cold Spring THROUGH Fall

Common Name or Meaning The Bracted Isochilus - In Mexico Sanguinaria

Flower Size .15" [.3 cm]

Found in Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Mexico, Moreloss, Guerrero and Oaxaca Mexico in moist pine-oak forests and barranca forests at elevations of 1250 to 2500 meters as a small to large sized, warm to cold growing humus epiphyte or lithophyte with thick, purple magenta to coffee colored roots, a short rhizome giving rise to cane-like, erect to arcuate-hanging, slightly compressed towards the apex stems carrying many, all facing one direction, distichous, narrowly linear-lanceolate, emarginate-bilobed, asymetrical, round lobed apically, purple spotted leaves that blooms in the spring through fall on a terminal, arching, dense, sessile, 1 to 2" [2.5 to 5 cm] long, subsecund, successively 6 to 11 flowered inflorescence with the top 4 leaves becoming dark purple.

This species has been used in Mexican folk legend as a nostrum for diabetes and dysentery. This species is easily recognized, by narrow arched leaves, the 2 dots or a single stripe on the often large sized, carmen magenta flowers lip.

Synonyms *Dendrobium bracteatum Lex. in P.de La Llave & J.M.de Lexarza 1825

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI Orquideas del Estado de Morelos ORQUÍDEA (MÉX.) VOLUMEN 16 NÚMERO ÚNICO enero 2002 drawing fide/photo good; Icones Orchidacearum fascile 10 plate 1031 Hagsater & Soto 2008 drawing ok; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------