Sobralia amabilis (Rchb.f.) L.O.Williams 1946 SECTION Abbreviatae
Photo by © Dressler, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
Photo by Fritz Hamer Copyright © , and the Dr Leslie Garay Archives
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Common Name The Beautiful Sobralia
Flower Size 2.4" [6 cm]
Found from El Salvador, Costa Rica to Ecuador in cool cloud forests at elevations of 1100 to 2400 meters as a large sized, warm to cool growing epiphytic or terrestrial orchid with subfruticose, leafless below stems carrying towards the apex, 3 to 8, coriaceous, broadly lanceolate-elliptic, long-acuminate, plicate, gradually narrowing below into the cuneate basally clasping leaves with prominently verrucose leaf sheaths that blooms in the late spring through winter on a terminal, fascile, subsessile, single to 3 flowered inflorescence with cymbiform, erect, subimbricate, longer than the lowers floral bracts.
Synonyms Fregea amabilis Rchb.f. 1852; Sobralia lepida Rchb. f. 1866;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; Bot. Zeit. (Berlin) 10: 712. 1852 as Fregea amabilis; Xenia Orchidaceae vol 2 Rchb.f 1873 as S lepida Drawing; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 as Fregea amabilis; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 9. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as Frega amabilis; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 162. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as Frega amabilis; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946; Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 drawing ok; Las Orquedias de El Salvador Vol 3 Hamer 1981 as Sobralia lepida drawing/photo fide; Die Orchideen lieferung 13 753 - 816 Bulbophyllinae Brieger 1983; as Frega amabilis; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1490 Mora & Atwwod 1992 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing fide; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 2 Morales 2009 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 75 #1 2011 photo fide; Pl. Syst. Evol. 303: 868 Baranow, Dudek & Szach. 2017; Orchid Digest Vol 82 #2 2018 Photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; LANKESTERIANA 20(1) 2020 photo fide
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