Cyrtochilum diodon (Rchb. f.) Kraenzl. 1917

SECTION Cimicifera Lindley Photo by © Pieter C. Brouwer and his Photo Website

Brown Colored Flower Photo by © Gary Yong Gee and his Orchid Photo Website

Common Name or Meaning The Two-Toothed Cyrtochilum

Flower Size .5" [1.25 cm]

Found in Ecuador and Peru in wet cloudforests at elevations around 2400 to 2600 meters as a medium sized, cold growing orchid with slightly flattened pseudobulbs enveloped, basally by 8 to 10, imbricating, deciduous, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying 2 apical, oblong elliptic, acute, narrowing and becoming conduplicte towards the base that blooms in the summer on a basal, arching, , to 63" [160 cm] long, paniculate inflorescence with several branches [6 to 12 flowered] that often form secondary branches all carrying many small flowers and arising on a newly matured pseudobulb through a leaf bearing sheath often after the leaf has fallen off.

This species, C murinum, C porrigens and C umbonatum are all very similar and may all be in one variable species complex but I have kept them separate for now.

Synonyms *Oncidium diodon Rchb.f 1880; Oncidium sodiroi Schltr. 1922; Trigonochilum diodon (Rchb. f.) Königer & Schildhauer 1994

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Das Pflanzenreich Odontoglossum/Oncidium Kranzlin 1917 drawing good; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Orchids of Peru Plate 0124 Dodson & Bennett 1989 as Oncidium diodon drawing fide; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 2 2001; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 as Oncidium diodon photo fide; Orquideologia Vol. 23 No 2 2004 as Oncidium diodon; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium, Bakers 2006; The Pictoral Encyclopedia of Oncidium Zelenko 2002; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010 drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------