Pelexia congesta Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 SECTION Pelexia
Photo by © Fredy Archila
Drawing by © Fritz Hamer
EARLY 
Common Name The Congested Pelexia [refers to the inflorescence]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua and Costa Rica in tropical and montane rainforests at elevations of 300 to 1500 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing as a terrestrial with large, tuberous, lanuginose roots giving rise to a basal rosette of 8, elliptic-lanceolate, acute, gradually narrowing below into the channeled shortly petiolate base leaves that blooms in the winter and early spring on an erect, terminal, peduncle 3.6" [9 cm] long, closely glanular-pubescent, provided and enveloped almost completely by loose, tubular sheathing bracts, rachis to 3" [7.5 cm] long, glabrous below, pubescent above, 8 to 25 flowered inflorescence with very large, lanceolate, acuminate, longer than the flowers floral bracts.
"Allied to Pelexia funckiana but differs from it and all other Central American species in its congested habit, cellular-pubescent anterior surface of the column, the prominent conical spur and the large flowers. Pelexia bonariensis shares the densely pubescnt outer surface of the perianth, but it has short lip auricles and very short petioles of the leaves." Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930
Synonyms Pelexia olivacea subsp. congesta (Ames & C.Schweinf.) Szlach. 2003
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Schedul. Orchid. 10: 5 Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate 1071 Hamer 1984 drawing fide;
Icones Orchidacearum plate 83 Salazar 1990 drawing fide;
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate 1477 Atwood 1992 drawing fide;
Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo fide;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing fide;
Genus, Suppl.: 58 Szlach., Mytnik & Rutk. 2003 as Pelexia olivacea subsp. congesta
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 photo fide;
Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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