!Cischweinfia pusilla (C. Schweinf.) Dressler & N.H. Williams 1970 Photo courtesy of Andy's Orchids. Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved.

Plant and Flowers Photo courtesy of Dale and Deni Borders

Common Name The Tiny Cischweinfia

Flower Size 3/4" to 1 1/2" [2 to 3.75 cm]

Found in Panama and Costa Rica in wet montane forests as a small sized, warm growing epiphyte that is found at elevations of 600 to 1000 meters with linear or ellipsoid, strongly laterally compressed, ancipitous pseudobulbs partially enveloped basally by several disitichous, imbricating, conduplicate, lower leafless and upper leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying a single, apical, linear to strap-shaped, slightly coriaceous, oblique, narrowing below into the conduplicate petiolate base leaf that blooms on an axillary, short to 2" [5 cm], several [3 to 5] flowered inflorescence arising on a newly matured pseduobulb through the axils of the basal sheath all occurring in the spring.

Synonyms *Aspasia pusilla C. Schweinf. 1941; Trichopilia pusilla [Schweinfurth] Garay 1970

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; Bot. Mus. Leafl. 10: 21. 1941 as Aspasia pusila; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 6 1958 as Aspasia pusilla; AOS Bulletin Vol 33 No 6 1964 photo as Aspasia pusilla; AOS Bulletin Vol 39 No 1 1970 photo; *AOS Bulletin Vol 39 No 11 1970 photo; AOS Bulletin Vol 49 No 7 1980 drawing; AOS Bulletin Vol 64 No 9 1995 Photo; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997; AOS Bulletin Vol 72 No 2 2003 photo; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium, Bakers 2006; The Pictoral Encyclopedia of Oncidium Zelenko 2005; Vanishing Beauty; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005

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