Sobralia powellii Schltr. 1922 SECTION Abbreviatae
Photo by © Karl Senghas and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Photo by © Claude Lecourt and his Orchid Website
Photos by Dale and Deni Borders.
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Common Name Powell's Sobralia [American Orchid Collector early 20th Century]
Flower Size 4 to 6 1/2" [10 to 16 cm]
Found in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru? in wet montane forests as a large to giant sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial on steep embankments or rarely an epiphyte low on trees in pastures at elevations of 500 to 1500 meters with erect, cane-like, strigose stems carrying variable, papery, plicate, basally clasping, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate leaves that blooms on a sessile, terminal, cone-like, successively single flowered inflorescence with imbricate, dark-scabridous floral bracts and carrying very large, fragrant, short-lived flowers occuring in the spring and summer.
CAUTION!!!!> The first photo matches most all descriptions [white flower with yellow in the throat and 3 to 5 inconspicuous lines in the throat] of S powellii the best, all the others here and there are many others on the net that carry this name, but I feel that they are not S powellii.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; *Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 17: 11. Panama Schlechter 1922; Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 312 Dodson 1980 drawing ok; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1172 Dodson 1984 drawing ok; Orchids from The Coast Of Ecuador Arosemana, Jurado, Estrada and Konanz 1988 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids VOl 5 Dodson 2004 drawing/photo ok; AOS Bulletin Vol 75 No 2 2006 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 76 No 12 2007 photo not; AOS Bulletin vol 78 No 11 2009 photo fide; Orchid Species Of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo not = S setigera; AOS Bulletin Vol 79 #7 2010 photo fide; LANKESTERIANA 17(3) 2017 drawing fide;
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