Cranichis polayantha Schlechter 1920 Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding

Common Name or Meaning The Many Flowered Cranichis

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Colombia and Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 2500 meters as a small sized, cool to warm growing terrestrial with 2 to 3, lanceolate, acute, thick, fleshy leaves with an elongate, channeled petiole that blooms in the summer on an erect, scapose, densely many flowered, 17 1/2" [to 44 cm] long, racemose inflorescence with 2 to 4, leaf-like, infundibuliform, membraneous, green bracts with tubular bases and basally clasping all carrying nonresupinate flowers

Synonyms Cranichis calva var. vargasii C. Schweinf. 1951; Cranichis polyantha var. caquetaensis Renz 1948

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten II Colombia Schlechter 1920; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 224 Bennett & Christenson 1995; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide

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