Cyrtochilum nigratum (Lindl. & Paxton) Kraenzl. 1922

SECTION Cimicifera Lindley

Photo courtesy of Botanická zahrada a arboretum Mendelova zemedelská a lesnická univerzita v Brne, Brno, Czech

SLIGHT

Common Name The Blackish Cyrtochilum [refers to the dark purple spots on the sepal and petals]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Colombia and Venezuela, Guyana and south to Brazil in cloud forests or shrublands at elevations of 1500 to 2200 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold growing occasional terrestrial in thin soils in scrub, lithophyte on top of mesas and epiphyte low on trees in dwarf forests with pear-shaped, pale brown to yellow green, strongly laterally compressed, ancipitous, longitudinally grooved pseudobulbs partially enveloped basally by several pairs of imbricating, distichous, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying 2 to 3, narrowly elliptic, stiff, acute, mostly keeled dorsally, shortly conduplicate below into the base leaves and blooms in the spring, summer and fall on an erect, then pendant, to more than 79" [200 cm] long, lightly or strongly paniculate, each to 24" [60 cm] long branch carrying 5 to 15 flowers, many flowered inflorescence that arises on a newly matured pseudobulb and carries slightly fragrant, showy flowers.

Synonyms Oncidium nigratum Lindl. & Paxton 1850; Oncidium uaipanense Schnee 1952