Octomeria grandiflora Lindl. 1842 SECTION Planifolia Photo by © Jay Pfahl.

Flower and Plant Photo by Arthur Skinner.

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Common Name The Large-Flowered Octomeria

Flower Size less than 1" [less than 2.5 cm]

Found at elevations of 100 to 2500 meters in Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago, French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil as a medium sized, wet forest, hot to cool growing epiphyte that is mat-forming and is the largest in the genus both vegatatively and florally with terete below and laterally compressed above tufted stems carrying a single, apical, linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear-rhombic, acute, erect to arcuate, coriaceous-rigid, leathery, conduplicate below into the petiolate base leaf. It has a single flower arising in the fall through spring on a very short, fasciculate, several flowered, axillary inflorescence arising on a mature ramicaul with papery sheathing bracts, carrying the single flowers at the base of the leaf.

Part of the SECTION Planifolia O grandiflora alliance with O anceps, O edmundoi and O petulans. Plants within this alliance are robust and have laterally compressed stems becoming almost ancipitous.

Synonyms Octomeria arcuata Rolfe 1909; Octomeria boliviensis Rolfe 1907; Octomeria grandiflora var. robusta (Barb.Rodr.) Cogn. 1896; Octomeria grandiflora var. seegeriana (Kraenzl.) Cogn. 1896; Octomeria lobulosa Rchb.f. 1858; Octomeria ruthiana Hoehne 1937; Octomeria robusta Barb. Rodr. 1881; Octomeria robusta Rchb.f. & Warm. 1881; Octomeria seegeriana Kraenzl. 1892; Octomeria similis Schltr. 1922; Octomeria surinamensis Focke 1849

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Otia Botanica Hamburgensia Rchb.f 1881 as O robusta; Xenia Orchidaceae Vol 3 Reichenbach 1892 as O seegeriana drawing fide; Iconographia de Orchidaeceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 drawing fide; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Flora de Venezuela Volumen XV Primera Parte Foldats 1969 as O surinamensis drawing good; Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as O robusta drawing fide; Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 drawing fide; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing fide; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 as O surinamensis drawing ok; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 as O surinamensis drawing ok; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as O surinamensis drawing ok; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 888 Dodson 1983 as Octomeria surinamensis drawing not - See O surinamensis fide; The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986 photo fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 265 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 as O boliviensis drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991 as O surinamensis photo 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 as O robusta; Orchids of the High Mountain Atlantic Rainforest in SE Brazil Warren & Miller 1994; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 as O surinamensis drawing ok; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 42-43 pg 2624 - 2756 Brieger 2001 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 as O surinamensis photo not; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing good; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 as O surinamensis; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 as Octomeria surinamensis drwaing/photo ok; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 Drawing fide; Orquideas de Roirama Luz & Franco 2012 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #2 2016 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #4 2017 photo fide;

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