Mormolyca aurorae D.E.Benn. & Christenson 1998

Drawing by © Alcantara, Bennett & Christenson

LATE EARLIER

Common Name Aurora's Mormolyca {Aurora Bennett wife of the co-author]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Junin department of Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 1890 meters as a small sized, cool growing trailing epiphyte with an elongate rhizome giving rise to oblong-elliptic, complanate pseudobulbs enveloped basally by a pair of distichous, imbricating, scarious bsheaths and carrying a single, apical, oblong to elliptic-lanceolate,, acute, keeled beneath, conduplicate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring, summer and earlier fall on a long, wiry, with several, close, remote bracts, to 6" [15 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with lanceolate, acute, less than hal;f the length of the ovary floral bracts and carrying spreading flowers with orange tepals, the sepals with 7 purple lines, the petals with a purple midvein, the lip dark brown, with dark purple spots at the base and a pair of submarginal lateral rows of congested spots and a yellow tinted faintly greenish anther.

Close to M gracillipes but M aurorae has an elongate rhizome, an unlobed lip, a completely glabrous column, the purple veined tepals and the submarginal rows of congested purple dots on the lip.

Synonyms Maxillaria postarinoi Molinari 2015

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 517 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 44-45 pg 2763 - 2898 Brieger 2001; Las Orquideas del Peru Bezverhov 2011 photo fide; LANKESTERIANA 14(1) 2014

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