Maxillaria caespitifica Rchb. f. 1876 sect. Erectae Pfitz 1889

Photo by David P. Banks, Australia ©

To and

Common Name The Mat-Forming Maxillaria

Flower Size 1 1/2" [4 cm]

Found Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Surinam, Guyana, French Guiana, Ecuador and Peru in wet, montane forests at elevations of 100 to 1200 meters as a miniature sized, hot to cool growing, ascending, unifoliate epiphyte from with a rhizome with 2 to 3 distichous, imbricating sheaths, between each oblong-elliptic, compressed pseudobulb partially enveloped basally by a few scarious, distichous, imbricating leafless below and leaf-bearing above sheaths and carrying a single, lorate, acute, flat, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate clasping base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on a subsessile, single flowered inflorescence arising on a newly forming pseudobulb with close, short, tubular bracts arising from the basal sheaths.

Very similar to Maxillaria variabilis and is a less straggling orchid with smaller pseudobulbs and flowers that are less shiny.

Synonyms Maxillariella caespitifica (Rchb. f.) M.A. Blanco & Carnevali 2007

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 drawing good; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing good; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 451 Dodson 1982 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 845 Dodson 1983 drawing ok; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 095 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1999 drawing ok; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing good; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing maybe; Phytotaxa 289 (3): 247–255 2016; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 as Maxillariella caespitifica photo fide

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