| Neutral | armemo | On May 27, 2007, armemo from Moravia, San José
Costa Rica wrote:Plant epiphytic, ascending, stout, with abbreviated rhizome, to 70 cm tall. Roots fleshy, glabrous, with many slender, erect, secondary rootlets, forming dense mats around the plant base. Pseudobulbs subfusiform-conical, to 30 cm long, 5-8 cm wide, covered by 5-6 scarious, imbricating leaf-sheaths. Leaves 6 to 8, distichous, elliptic-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, acute to acuminate, plicate, strongly nerved, up to 45 cm long, 8-12 cm wide, the blades deciduous, the persistent bracts enveloping the pseudobulbs armed at apex with sharped spines. Inflorescence lateral, basal, erect to arching, racemose, 3-to 14-flowered, up to 40 cm long. Ovaries pedicellate, stout, arcuate, to 3 cm long. Flowers relatoively large, non-resupinate, unisexual, dimorphic, staminate and pistillate flowers produced on separate inflorescences. Staminate flowers (male) yellowish-green, suffused and spotted by purple. Dorsal sepal membranaceous, oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, acuminte, concave, to 4.2 cm long, 1.6 cm wide. Lateral sepals membranaceous, obliquely lanceolate, acuminate, to 4.4 cm long, 1.9 cm wide. Petals membranaceous, elliptic-lanceolate, aacuminate, mucronate at apex, 4 cm long, 1.8 cm wide. Lip fleshy, rigid, saccate, obconic, 3 cm long, 2.5 cm wide, margins of the basal portion of the orifice ciliate, apex of the orifice slightly emarginate. Column stout, rostrate, concave, 3.2 cm long, 1.2 cm wide, with 2 slender, elongate antennae projecting downward, one unciform, the other undulate, extending into the calceolate lip. Pollinia 2, obovate, sulcate, on a obtriangular deflexed stipe; viscidium peltate. Anther cap cucullate-rostrate, 2-celled. Pistillate flowers (female) yellowish green, spotted by purple at the base of petals. Sepals and petals reflexed, fleshy. Sepals subequal, broadly ligular, apiculate at apex, to 2.8 cm long, 2 cm wide. Petals elliptic-lanceolate, acute, to 2.5 cm long, 1.9 cm wide. Lip fleshy, rigid, saccate, 3.1 cm long, about 2 cm wide, margins of the orifice smooth. Column fleshy, very stout, to 1.4 cm long, 1.2 cm wide, with a short apicule on upper apex.
Distribution: From Mexico to Colombia. Rather common at lower elevations in Central America.
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