!Malaxis spicata Sw. 1788 SECTION Malaxis
Photos by David McAdoo
Common Name The Spike-Shaped Malaxis - Florida's Adder's Mouth
Flower Size .15 to .2" [3 to 5 mm]
Found in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Bahamas, Leewards, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica at elevations of 200 to 1100 meters in rich, damp woodlands, on riverbanks and floodplains, tree bases and stumps as a mini-miniature to medium sized, warm to cold growing terrestrial and occasional epiphyte with 2, basal, ovate, keeled, nearly opposite, swollen at the base into the peas-sized pseudobulb that blooms in the summer through fall on a terminal, erect, 5 to 115 flowered inflorescence carrying doubly resupinate, successively opening flowers
Synonyms Achroanthes floridana (Chapm.) Greene 1891; Malaxis brittonii Acuña 1939; Malaxis confusa (Cogn.) C.Schweinf. 1938; Malaxis floridana (Chapm.) Kuntze 1891; Malaxis integra (Fawc. & Rendle) Fawc. & Rendle 1910; Malaxis spicata f. trifoliata P.M.Br. 2003; Microstylis confusa Cogn. 1909; Microstylis floridana Chapm. 1860; Microstylis integra Fawc. & Rendle 1909; Microstylis spicata Lindl.1830
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Fascile 2 Ames 1908; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 as M integra drawing fide; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as Microstylis spicata; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; The Native Orchids of Florida Luer 1972 drawing/photos fide; Die Orchideen Band 3 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas Liferung #13 753 - 819 Liparinae 1983; Native Orchids of Florida Luer 1972; AOS Bulletin Vol 55 No 3 1986 photo fide; Catalogo Descriptivo de las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna 1987 as Malaxis brittonii/Malaxis confusa/Malaxis spicata; An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995; AOS Bulletin Vol 69 No 4 2000; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 42 - 43 pg 2626 - 2762 Brieger 2001; The Wild Orchids of Florida P. M. Brown 2002; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho and Larramendi 2005 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 #1 2008 photo fide;
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