Maxillaria falcata Ames & Correll 1943 Photo by © Maxillaria Ed and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Plant and Flowers in situ Panama Photo by © John Godfrey Schellinger and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Falcate Maxillaria

Flower Size 2" [5 cm]

Found in Costa Rica and Panama on steep embankments in cloud forests at elevations of 1800 to 2400 meters as a giant sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial or epiphyte with an erect to decumbent, branching stem without pseudobulbs carrying usually deciduous along the lower cane, thin, conduplicate, oblong-lanceolate, abaxially keeled, unequally bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the winter on many overall, 2 or more per leaf axil, shorter than the leaves, to 1.2" [3 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence subtended by a somewhat cucullate, hyaline margined floral bracts.

The flowers can be pinkish to white and are found all along the stem in profusion.

Synonyms Camaridium falcatum (Ames & Correll) M.A.Blanco 2007; Ornithidium costaricense Schltr. 1910

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;

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