!Porphyroglottis maxwelliae Ridl. 1896
Photo courtesy of Nik Fahmi and his Vortex Orchid Webpage plant and photo by Mona Aman
Common Name or Meaning Maxwell's Porphyroglottis [Female English Orchid enthusiast late 1800's]
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Borneo, Penninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Brunei, Darussalam at elevations of sealevel to 500 meters in open, dwarf, low crowned heath forests often in the forks of the trunk of large trees as a medium sized, hot to warm growing, clumping epiphyte that is similar in habit to a miniature Grammatophyllum speciosum but the flower is completely different. The plant has a trash basket root system and traps leaf litter and other organic matter as well as maintaining biting-ant colonies with cylindrical, clustered stems enveloped completely by imbricate, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying many linear, apically narrowing, acute, shiney above, paler below, basally clasping leaves and blooms on a slender, basal, occasionally branching inflorescence that elongates slowly to a final length of 5' [150 cm] and carries many [20] successive, non-resupinate flowers with 1 to 3 open at any one time on the zig-zag rachis.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Orchid Digest Vol 47 No 1 1983 photo fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 25 1520 - 1584 Brieger 1991 drawing good/photo good; The Orchids of Penninsular Malaysia and Singapore Seidenfaden & Wood 1992 drawing fide; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 drawing fide; A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Wood & Cribb 1994; Orchids of Borneo Vol 1 Chan, Lamb, Shim & Wood 1994 drawing/photo fide; Orchids of Sumatra Comber 2001 photo fide; Orchids of Sarawak Beaman, Wood & Beaman etal 2001 photo fide;
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