Sobralia violacea Linden ex Lindl. 1846 SECTION Abbreviatae
Photo by Patricia Harding
to 
Common Name The Violet Sobralia
Flower Size 4" [10 cm]
Found from Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Surinam?, and Peru in open places at the margins of cloud forests at elevations of 100 to 3300 meters in rocky soil as a large sized, hot to warm growing terrestrial or epiphyte with ovate-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, plicate, long acuminate, leaves with warty leaf bases and blooms in the spring, summer and fall on a short, 1 to 3 flowered, terminal inflorescence with successively single, fragrant, showy, short lived flowers.
Synonyms Cattleya violacea Beer 1854
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1853 S violacea var albiflora;
Prakt. Stud. Orchid.: 215 Beer 1854 as Cattleya violacea, pro syn.; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855; Flora Brasilica Vol XII II Hoehne 1945 drawing fide; Iconografia de Orchidaceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 drawing fideVenezuelan Orchids Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing not = S yauaperyensis; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; AOS Bulletin VOl 36 #9 1967; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 drawing not = S yauaperyensis; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 as S yauaperyensis drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = S yauaperyensis; Die Orchideen lieferung #13 753 - 816 Bulbophyllinae Brieger 1983 photo fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0299 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing ok; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Venezuela, Paraiso de Orquideas Romero 1997 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004 drawing/photo not; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo; Pl. Syst. Evol. 303: 868 Baranow, Dudek & Szach. 2017
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