Maxillaria aciantha Rchb.f. 1852
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Photo by © Joseph Dougherty
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Common Name The Pointed Flower Maxillaria
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found from Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama at elevations around 50 to 1300 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte that occurs in wet montane forests with clustered, cylindric-fusiform, laterally compressed, vertically ribbed pseudobulbs enveloped basally by 1 to 3, quickly deciduous, leaf bearing sheaths and carrying 2, apical, erect, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, attenuate, unequally bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the fall and winter on a lateral, .6" [1.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with the pedicel and ovary enveloped by a 3 to 5, inflated floral bracts.
Synonyms Lycaste aciantha Rchb.f. 1855; Rhetinantha aciantha (Rchb. f.) M.A. Blanco 2007
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855 as Lycaste aciantha; *Bot. Zeit. Berlin 10: 858. 1852; Bonplandia 3(15): 216. 1855 as Lycaste aciantha; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 17: 67. Panama Schlechter 1922; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 139. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 229. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 840 Dodson 1983 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1333 Atwood 1989 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum plate 092 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 63 No 4 1994; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1999 drawing good; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Lankesteriana 7(3): 534. 2007 as Rhetinantha aciantha; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 4 Morales 2009 as Rhetinantha aciantha photo fide; Maxillaria an Unfinished Monograph Vol 1 Christenson 2013 photo/drawing fide; Algunas Orquideas de Mexico Tomo 1 Suarez 2013 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Rhetinantha aciantha
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