Oncidium abortivum Rchb.f 1849 SECTION Heterantha

Photo by © Robinson Galindo Tarazona and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

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Common Name The Aborted Oncidium [refers to the numerous flowers that do not fully develop on the inflorescence]

Flower Size 1/4" [6 mm]

Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in wet montane cloud forests at elevations of 200 to 1850 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with round, compressed, smooth pseudobulbs partially enveloped basally by several leaf-like sheaths and carrying a single, apical, linear, acute, conduplicate below into the base leaf that blooms on a 2" [5 cm] long, paniculate, several flowered inflorescence with a few sterile flowers on each branch and only one or two viable, non fragrant flowers.

The flowers can be color varible and in the form of the column wings and in the number of teeth on the otherwise characteristic callus.

Very similar to O orthotis which differs in a short, ascending rhizome giving rise to an erect inflorescence, the branches occupied by 1 normal and 1 to 2 abortive flowers, the lateral lobes large, the callus with 5 distinct rows of teeth, the anterior 3 teeth shortly band shaped and curve upwards and are connate in the basal third.

Synonyms Cyrtochilum orthotis (Rchb.f.) Kraenzl. 1917; Heteranthocidium orthotis (Rchb.f.) Szlach., Mytnik & Romowicz 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1853; Das Pflanzenreich Odontoglossum/Oncidium Kranzlin 1922 as Cyrtochilum orthotis drawing fide; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Volumen XV Part 5 Foldats 1970 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 177 Dodson 1980 drawing hmm; Orchids from The Coast Of Ecuador Arosemana, Jurado, Estrada and Konanz 1988 photo ok; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991 as Oncidium orthotis photo fide = O abortivum; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 33 - 36 2057 - 2308 Brieger 1997 photo ok; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata as O orthotis = O abortivum; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol. 23 No 2 2004; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium, Bakers 2006; Oncidium Vol 3 Koniger 2007 drawing/photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 as O sp. photo pg 261 fide; An Illustrated Field Guide to the Orchids of the Yotoco Forest Reserve Colombia Kolanowska, Escobar, Sanchez & Szlachetko 2011 as Heteranthocidium abortivum drawing ok

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