Sarcoglottis depinctrix Christenson & Toscano 2000
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by © Marion Sheehan
Common Name or Meaning The Lady Painter Sarcoglottis [refers to Mrs Sheehan, orchid illustrator 1900's]
Flower Size
Found in Rio de Janiero and Espirito Santo states of Brazil at elevations around 300 meters as a large sized, hot growing terrestrial with an abbreviated stem carrying rosulate, elliptic-oblanceolate, petiolate acute, dark green with longitudinal silvery striped leaves that blooms in the spring on a stiffly erect, long-pedunculate, peduncle to 17.6" [44 cm] long, enveloped by clasping, acuminate, sheathing bracts, rachis to 8.8" [22 cm] long, racmose, pubescent, densely many [7 to 35] flowered inflorescence with lancolate, acuminate, as long as to slightly longer than the ovaries floral bracts.
Similar to the only other species with longitudinally striped leaves, !Sarcoglottis acaulis but differs in its ecology at much lower elevations [300 meters], the densely flowered inflorescence, the pale greenish yellow flowers and the glabrous petals lacking ciliolate margins versus a lax inflorescence, brownish green flowers and petals with ciliolate margins. S acaulis occurs at much higher elevations of 720 to 2000 meters.
This new species has been consistently confused with Sarcoglottis metallica a totally unrelated species. Sarcoglottis acaulis has been defined with a broad white lip striped with dark emerald green
Synonyms
ReferencesW3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
AOS Bulletin Vol 49 No 3 1980 as S metallica not drawing fide
* AOS Bulletin Vol 69 No 9: 875 2000 photo/drawing fide;
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