Bletia gracilis Lodd. 1833
Another Angle Photos by © Mary E. Gerritsen
Plant and Flowers in situ Photos courtesy of Edouard Faria
MID 
Common Name or Meaning The Graceful Bletia
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero, Mexico, Morelos and Oaxaca states of Mexico as well as Guatemala on rocky or grassy hillsides in oak and oak-pine forests at elevations of 600 to 2200 meters as a medium sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial orchid with ovoid, erect, solitary or clustered corms enveloped basally by fibrous bases of old leaf bearing sheaths and carrying 1 to 2, apical, erect, plicate, purple below, green above, oblong-elliptic, to lanceolate, acute to acuminate, petiolate leaves and blooms in the summer and fall with or without leaves and sometimes as late as mid-winter on leafless corms, occuring as a basal, slender, wiry, 8 to 30" [20 to 75 cm] long, few to 10 flowered inflorescence that is enveloped basally by several, imbricating, scarious sheaths. This species and B roezlii, which is often listed as B gracilis var roezlii can be distinguished by the papillose lip of the latter and the flowers that open better and have more substance.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 5 1958 drawing; Encylopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Flora Novo-Galaciana Vol. 16 McVaugh 1985
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