Barkeria whartoniana (C. Schweinf.) Soto Arenas 1993 Photo by © Lourens Grobler

Another Angle Photo Courtesy of Eric Hunt, plant grown by George Su.

Common Name Wharton's Barkeria

This small sized lithophyte and occasional epiphyte from Oaxaca state of Mexico and is found in hot, dry, deciduous forests or stunted forests around rock outcroppings occuring at elevations of 200 to 300 meters with thickened slightly compressed stems enveloped by scarious, apressed sheaths and carrying 4 to 7, ensiform to narrowly ovate, acute, deciduous coriaceous, articulate to the leaf sheath leaves and blooms in the fall in the wild and into the winter and early spring in cultivation on an apical, racemose several flowered inflorescence with non-fragrant flowers. Can be confused with B melanocaulon and B fritz-halbingeriana but differs in having the column free from the lip, the other two have the column adpressed to the lip.

Synonyms *Epidendrum whartonianum C. Schweinf. 1948

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1982 as Epidendrum lindleyanum; Icones Orchidacearum 5 & 6 Orchids Of Mexico Parts 2 & 3 Plate 531 Hagsater, Soto 2002