Anacheilium fragrans (Sw.) Acuña 1938 Photo courtesy of Jay Pfahl

TO and

Common Name The Fragrant Anacheilium

Flower Size 1 1/2" [3.75 cm]

Collected in Jamaica in the cooler west central mountains where it blooms in summer on an apical, erect, short to 5" [to 10 cm], few to several [3 to 10] flowered, racemose, shorter than the leaves inflorescence arising on a newly matured pseudobulb subtended by a large basal bract and is quite fragrant [honey and Vanilla]. They also are found from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Leewards, Trinidad & Tobago, Windwards, French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in lowland tropical rainforests to lower montane forests up to 2000 meters in altitude with cylindric to fusiform, narrowly ovoid pseudobulbs with basal bracts that become papery with age and a single, coriaceous, ligulate oblong to narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, obtuse leaf which blooms mostly in the winter and spring, but is possible in all seasons with a well grown plant. It grows best mounted on wood with cool to warm temperatures and is medium in size.

Synonyms Encyclia fragrans [Swartz] Lemee 1955; Epidendrum cochleatum Curtiss; Epidendrum cordatum Ruiz & Pav. 1798; *Epidendrum fragrans Sw. 1788; Epidendrum fragrans var. ionoleucum Hoffm. ex Barb Rod 1881; Epidendrum fragrans var. magnum Stein. 1892; Epidendrum fragrans var. pachupus Schlechter 1922; Epidendrum ionoleucum Hoffm. ex Rchb.f 1852; Epidendrum lineatum G. Salisb. 1796; Epidendrum vaginatum Sesse & Mocino 1894; Hormidium fragran [Sw] Brieger 1961; Prosthechea fragrans (Sw.) W. E. Higgins 1997

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 as Epidendrum fragrans; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970 as Epidendrum fragrans; Native Colombian Orchid Vol 1 COS 1990; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1992 as Encyclia fragrans; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Epidendrum fragrans; Manual of Cultivated Orchids Bechtel, Cribb, Laurent 1992 as Encyclia fragrans; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchds Pridgeon 1992 as Encyclia fragrans; The Cattleyas and Their Relatives, the Debateable Epidendrum Withner and Harding 2004; The Genus Encyclia in Mexico Dressler & Pollard 1976 as Encyclia fragrans; A Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993 as Encyclia fragrans; Las Orquedias de El Salvador Hamer 1974 as Epidendrum fragrans; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 690 Dodson 1982 as Encyclia fragrans; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1425 Mora & Atwood 1992 as Encyclia fragrans; Orchids of Guatemala and Belize Ames and Corell 1985 as Epidendrum fragrans; The Orchids of Panama Williams 1980 as Epidendrum fragrans; Orcidaceae Brasilensis Pabst & Dungs 1972 as Epidendrum fragrans; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Dunsterville and Garay 1979 as Epidendrum fragrans; Botanica's Orchids Laurel Glenn 2002 as Protheschea fragrans; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 as Prosthechea fragrans; The Orchids Of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005 as Protheschea fragrans; Orquideas Da Chapada Diamantina Brito & Cribb 2005 as Protheschea fragrans

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