Maxillaria ampliflora C.Schweinf. 1940

Photo by © Dominique La Charop'ee at Flickr Orchid Photo Website

and again LATE to EARLY

Common Name The Wide Opening Maxillaria

Flower Size 2" [5 cm]

Found in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 1000 to 2100 meters as a medium to giant sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial with erect to decumbent, successively borne shoots, each terminated basally by an ovoid, compressed pseudobulb subtended by several basal leaves and carrying a single, apical, erect, narrowly elliptic, conduplicate, larger towards the apex, acute, gradually narrowing below into the distinctly and shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and again in the late summer and early fall on 1 to 2 per leaf axil, short, single flowered inflorescence.

Similar to M bradeorum but it has smaller flowers with more purple in the floral segments, and a lip with a proportionally smaller midlobe.

Synonyms Camaridium ampliflorum (C.Schweinf.) M.A.Blanco 2007

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Fieldiana Botany Flora Costa Ricensis Family 39 Orchidaceae, Tribe Maxillariaeae Atwood & Mora de Retana 1999 drawing good; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; AOS Bulletin Vol 78 #2 2009 as Camaridium ampliflorum photo fide;

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