Pelexia maculata Rolfe 1893

Inflorescence Photos by © of Christian Gegenbauer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Spotted Pelexia [refers to the leaves]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 1600 meters as a small sized, cool growing terrestrial with 3 to 4, broadly elliptic, very slightly oblique, leathery, dark petroleum green with yellowish white spots above, deep purple beneath, acute, cuneate-rounded into the erect, 6" [15 cm] long, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a terminal, erect, enveloped completely by tight, acuminate bracts, 8" [20 cm] long, pubescent, several to many flowered inflorescence with long acuminate, as long as the flower floral bracts.

Often cited as a synonym of P laxa but I feel that it warrants separation, differs mostly in the broadly ellliptic leaves, the oblanceolate lateral sepals and the more pronouned helmut formed by the dorsal sepal and the connivent petals.

Synonyms *Spiranthes maculata (Rolfe) C.Schweinf. 1941;

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Flora Brasilica Fasc 8 Vol XII II 13-43 Orchidaceae Hoehne 1945; Flora Brasilica Fasc 8 Vol XII II 13-43 Orchidaceae Illustrations Hoehne 1945 drawing good; Iconografia de Orchidaceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 drawing good; AOS Bulletin Vol 31 No 8 1962 photo as Spiranthes maculata; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 drawing ok; Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 good; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 drawing good; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 149 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; Orchids of The Brazilian Central Plateau Menezes 2004 photo ok; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #8 2017 as P laxa photo fide;

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