Octomeria diaphana Lindley 1939 SECTION Planifolia

Plant and Flowers

Photos by © Luiz Filipe Varela and his Flicker website

to LATEto EARLY

Common Name The Translucent Octomeria

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in southeastern Brazil as a small sized, warm to cool growing epiphytic species from the Organ Mountains in humid, primary forests on mossy tree trunks and branches with slender, terete, erect, 3 to 4 noded stems carrying a single, apical, erect or slightly spreading, rigid, fleshy, sessile, oblong-lanceolate, acute leaf that is tinged with purple that blooms late spring and early summer on an axillary, 1/10" to 1/5" [.3 to .5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence.

Part of the SECTION Planifolia O diaphana alliance with O bidentata, O chloidophylla, O crassilabia, O albopurpurea, O fialhoensis, O glazioviana, O rechiana and O reitzii. Plants in this alliance are medium to large sized but always have thin ramicauls with loose sheaths and carry thin coriaceousflexible leaves that narrow at the base into a .4” [1 cm] long, petiole. The sepals and petals of the flowers are acute to acuminate.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Orchidaceae Brasilienses Vol 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 drawing fide; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 photo fide; Orchids of the High Mountain Atlantic Rainforest in SE Brazil Warren & Miller 1994; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 Drawing fide; Lankesteriana 19(3) 2019 as O fialhoensis photo fide

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