Goniochilus leochilinus (Rchb.f.) M.W.Chase 1987

Flower Closeup Photos by © Walter Schug and His MesoAmerican Orchid Page

to LATE EARLY

Common Name The Leochilus-Like Goniochilus

Flower Size 1/4" [6mm]

Found from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama at elevations of 780 to 1500 meters in coffee plantations, rain and cloud forests as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with small, ovate to elliptic, laterally compressed, ancipitous pseudobulbs enveloped basally by several, distichous, imbricating, longitudinally folded sheaths with the uppermost carrying leaf-like blades and carrying apically, a single, oval, acute, erect, leathery, strongly keeled dorsally, gradually tapering below into the conduplicate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on 1 to 2, axillary, to 9" [23 cm] long, pendant, 5 to 50 flowered inflorescence arising on a recently matured pseudobulb with the small, bell-shaped flowers that do not open widely.

Synonyms Hybochilus leochilinus (Rchb.f.) Mansf. 1938; Mesospinidium leochilinum (Rchb.f.) Schltr. 1923; *Rodriguezia leochilina Rchb.f. 1871

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 253. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as Mesospinidium leochilinum; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 306. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as Mesospinidium leochilinum; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 781 Hamer 1982 as Hybochilus leochilinus drawing ok; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1436 Mora & Atwood 1992 drawing fide; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997; Vanishing Beauty; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005; Orchid Species Culture Oncidium/Odontoglossum Alliance Bakers 2006

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