Vanilla bicolor Lindl.1838 SUBGENUS Xanata SECTION Xanata
Photo by © Eric Christenson
Photo by © Dam, Householder and Lubinsky and Vanilla bicolor Lindl. (Orchidaceae) from the Peruvian Amazon: auto-fertilization in Vanilla and notes on floral phenology website
Photo by © D Clark
Common Name The Two Colored Vanilla
Flower Size with flower fully open 2.8" [with flower fully open 7 cm]
Found in Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Windward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, Fr Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil climbing over trees at elevations of 600 to 700 meters as a giant sized, warm growing, climbing epiphyte with an erect, slender, wiry stem with shorter than the internodes, papery, ovate, lanceolate, subcordate to cordate, acuminate, rigid and recurved apcially, sessile to short-petiolate base leaves that blooms in the spring on an axillary, successively to 5 or more flowered inflorescence and carrying sessile, fragrant, often cleistogamous flowers
"A very distinct Caribbean and Guyanan species. The slender plants with small, elliptic leaves, which are much shorter than the internodes, elongate inflorescences, a calyculate ovary, basally recurved pods, tan-colored tepals, a cream-yellowish lip with scattered hairs on the disc, and a poorly penicillate callus are characteristic among American vanillas. It differs from other Vanilla species, in that several populations are found in mountain habitats up to 1700 m elevation. Molecular data suggest that it is the sister species of all the American penicillate vanillas. This species is widely known as V. wrightii, a synonym; however, its identity was first elucidated by Sarah Thomas, from Kew and Eric Christenson published a well illustrated paper on the correct identity of this species." Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010
Synonyms Vanilla claviculata Lindl. 1858; Vanilla gratiosa Griseb. 1866; Vanilla lutea C.Wright ex Griseb. 1866; Vanilla wrightii Rchb.f. 1865;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 as V wrightii drawing ok; AOS Bulletin Vol 15 # 12 1946 as V claviculata; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 as V wrightii drawing ok; Flora of the Lesser Antilles Garay & Sweet 1974 as V wrightii; AOS Bulletin Vol 64 #8 1995 photo fide; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Orchid Digest Vol 64 #1 2000 photo fide to the white flower above; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005 photo fide; Lankesteriana 9(3): 355-398 Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010; AOS Bulletin Vol 89 #11 2020 photo fide;
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