Maxillaria melina Lindl. 1846 Photo by © Karl Senghas and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

EARLY

Common Name The White Makeup Maxillaria

Flower Size 3/4 to 1 1/4" [2 to 3 cm]

Found in Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests at elevations of 120 to 1570 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte or terrestrial on steep embankments with approximate, complanate, ovate pseudobulbs enveloped basally by several, distichous, imbricating leaf bearing sheaths and carrying a single, apical, oblong, acute, grey green, conduplicate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and early winter on a basal, several at a time, 2" [5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising through the cataphylls of a newly arising growth and is enveloped basally by several distichous, acuminate sheaths.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1854; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing fide drawing hmm; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961 not = M albiflora; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967; Flora de Venezuela Volumen XV Part 4 Foldats 1970 drawing not; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 not = M albiflora; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Plate 539 Dodson 1989 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991 photo not?; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 28 1713 - 1776 Brieger 1993; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo hmm; Las Orquideas del Peru Bezverhov 2011 photo not!

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