Maxillaria maleolens Schltr. 1923 sect. Iridifoliae Pfitz 1889

Photo by © Eerika Schulz and her Orchid Photo Website

Another Angle Photo by © Piotr Markiewicz and his Flick Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Foul Smelling Maxillaria

Flower Size 2" [5 cm]

Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in wet forests at elevations of 700 to 1150 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with ovate, smooth, laterally compressed pseudobulbs subtended by 2 or more, large, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying a single, apical, subcoriaceous, rather tough, oblong, obtuse to unequally bilobed, conduplicate below into the petiolate base leaves that blooms at most any time of the year on a fascile of successively opening, single flowered inflorescence that are 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long and enveloped by somewhat flared, obtuse, apiculate bracts and carrying coconut to napthalene scented [can be good or foul smelling], leathery flowers

Synonyms Heterotaxis maleolens (Schltr.) Ojeda & Carnevali 2005

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 28 1713 - 1776 Brieger 1993; 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 drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol. 23 No 1 2004 drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 as Heterotaxis maleolens photo fide; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 4 Morales 2009 as Heterotaxis maleolens photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Heterotaxis maleolens

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