Malaxis simillima (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891

Photo by © Adam Karremans

Common Name or Meaning The Very Similar Malaxis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Costa Rica and Chiriqui province of Panama at elevations around 1100 to 1900 meters as a just medium sized, cool growing terrestrial with short, cormous, hypogaeus stems enveloped by the scarious leaf sheaths and carrying 2, apical, lanceolate-ovate to broadly ovate, acuminate, membranaceous, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaves that blooms in the summer and fall on a short, dense, many flowered, subumbellate, racemose inflorescence with triangular, acute, much shorter than teh ovary floral bracts and carrying small green flowers.

"Very similar to M macrostachya but differs in the central cavity of the lip which is devoid of a longitudinal ridge versus the central cavity divided by a longitudinal ridge." Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023

Synonyms *Microstylis simillima Rchb.f. 1866

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Beitr. Orchid K C America 101 Rchb.f 1866 as Microstylis similliana;

* Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 673 Kuntze 1891;

The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946;

Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

Lankesteriana 19(1). 31 - 55 2019 photo fide;

Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide;

Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol IV:156 Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023 as Microstylis similliana drawing fide

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