Vanilla palmarum (Salzm. ex Lindl.) Lindl. 1840 SUBGENUS Xanata SECTION Xanata

Photo by © Ana Kelly and her Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Palm Loving Vanilla

Flower Size 2.8" [7 cm]

Found in Surinam, Fr Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in rainforests and palm swamps at elevations of 50 to 400 meters as a large sized, hot and pendant growing epiphyte with a glabrous, light green, many branched stem carrying yellow green leaves that blooms in the spring on a short, racemose, succcessively often many flowered inflorescence

"Vanilla palmarum is different from other American Vanilla species in lacking a penicillate callus on the lip, and in having its column united to the lip for only about a half of the column length. In other species the penicillate callus is necessary during the pollination, but V. palmarum seems to be autogamous. The inflorescence is rather lax, compared with other American vanillas. It forms infrutescences with many thick fruits with a conspicuous calyculus. Weak plants are sometimes confused with those of V. bicolor. It is repeatedly reported as growing on palms (Mauritia, Orbignya, Attelia, Scheelea, Syagrus), and can be very abundant. The mature fruits are apparently odour-less. Vanilla lindmanianahas been treated as an obscure, doubtful species. However, its habitat, habit, wooly column, simple ecallose lip, and concolorous yellow flowers suggest strongly that it is conspecific with V. palmarum. Considering the published drawings, Vanilla palmarum is rather variable in the form of the lip." Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010

Synonyms *Epidendrum palmarum Salzm. ex Lindl. 1840; Vanilla lindmaniana Kraenzl. 1911; Vanilla palmarum var. grandifolia Cogn. 1893

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora Brasilica Vol XII II Hoehne 1945 drawing ok; Flora Brasilica Vol XII II Hoehne 1945 as V palmarum var angustifolia drawing ok; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 1 Foldats 1969 drawing hmm; Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as V lindmanniana drawing fide; Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 drawing fide; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing hmm; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing hmm; The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986 photo not; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing hmm; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; Lankesteriana 9(3): 355-398 Soto Arenas & Cribb 2010; Orquideas de Roirama Luz & Franco 2012 photo fide;

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