Comparettia speciosa Rchb.f 1878 . Photo by © Eric Hunt and his Flicker Orchid Photostream

Inflorescence Photo by Jay Pfahl ©

Another Color Form Photo courtesy of Marc Flandre

Another Plant Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt

to to

Common Name The Beautiful Comparettia

Flower Size 1 1/4" [3 cm]

Found in southeastern Ecuador and Northwestern Peru in very wet montane forests as a miniature to small sized, pendant twig epiphyte in the lower cloud forests at elevations of 700 to 2000 meters with oblong-cylindric, lightly compessed pseudobulbs carrying a single apical, oblong-lanceolate, petiolate, acute and minutely biloped at the apex, coriaceous leaf that blooms on a delicate, basal, erect to arching, 12" [30+ cm] or longer, sometimes irregularly branched, racemose inflorescence with up to 8 successively opening flowers that can branch and reflower if left alone and occur in the summer in nature and winter and spring in cultivation.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 4 1991 photo; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 417 Dodson 1982; AOS Bulletin Vol 69 No 7 2000 photo; The Pictoral Encyclopedia of Oncidium Zelenko 2002; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium, Bakers 2006; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 427 Bennett 7 Christenson 1998; AOS Bulletin Vol 74 No 10 2005 photo; Miniature Orchids Frownie 2007; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 No 12 2008 photo; Orchid Digest Vol 72 No 4 2008 photo