Maxillaria curtipes Hook. 1841 - See Also Maxillaria variabilis Bateman ex Lindl. 1837 sect. Erectae Pfitz 1889
Photo by Dale and Deni Borders
Photo by Noble Bashor
to 
Common Name The Short-Column Maxillaria
Flower Size 3/4" [3.75 cm]
Found from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica in wet montane forests at elevations of 1000 to 3300 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold, ascending or pendulous growing epiphyte with a stout rhizome carrying ellipsoid-oblong, compressed pseudobulbs enveloped basally by several, imbricating leaf bearing sheaths and carrying a single, apical, linear, coriaceous, obtuse and obliquely retuse apically, conduplicate below into the elongate petiole leaf that can bloom at any time of the year on an axillary, .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising on a newly matured pseudobulb enveloped by imbricating sheaths with the waxy, showy long-lasting flower held way below the leaves.
This species is often listed as a synonym of M variabilis and very likely is but I have them separate here as they are often sold separately.
Synonyms Maxillariella curtipes (Hook.) M.A. Blanco & Carnevali 2007
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1045 Dodson 1984 drawing ok; Flora Novo-Galaciana Vol 16 McVaugh 1985; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1342 Atwood 1993 drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 28 1713 - 1776 Brieger 1993; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo hmm;
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