Maxillaria alba (Hook.) Lindl. 1832
Photo by © Sune Holt
Common Name The White Flowered Maxillaria
Flower Size 11.2" [3 cm]
Found in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil in lower montane forests at elevations of 250 to 1900 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with an ascending rhizome giving rise to ancipitous, ovate, smooth pseudobulbs enveloped basally by imbricate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, subcoriaceous, linear to narrowly elliptic, gradually narrowing below into the shortly petiolate base and the obtuse apex leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a few single flowered, 3/4 to 1 .2" [2 to 3 cm] long inflorescence arising from between the cataphylls of an arising shoot and carrying fragrant flowers.
Synonyms Broughtonia alba (Hook.) Spreng. 1826; Camaridium album (Hook.) Hoehne 1947; *Dendrobium album Hook. 1825; Maxillaria hedyosma Schltr. 1921; Maxillariella alba (Hook.) M.A. Blanco & Carnevali 2007
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 drawing ok; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946; Flora Brasilica Vol XII VII 115-147 Hoehne 1953 as Camaridium alba drawing ok; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 6 1958; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961 drawing fide; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 4 1970 drawing fide; Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 2 Pabst & Dungs 1977 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 144 Dodson 1980 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 841 Hamer/Dodson 1983 drawing ok; The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 1334 Dodson 1989 drawing ok; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 28 1713 - 1776 Brieger 1993 ; AOS Bulletin Vol 63 No 3 1994 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 499 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing good; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1999 drawing good; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol 22 #2 2002 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo ok; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo ok; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 2 Morales 2009 as Maxillariella alba photo fide; Las Orquideas del Peru Bezverhov 2011 photo fide; Orquideas de Roirama Luz & Franco 2012 as Maxillariella alba photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Maxillariella alba; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 as Maxillariella alba photo fide
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