Habenaria monorrhiza [Sw] Rchb.f 1885

Inflorescence, in situ Navarco Quindio Colombia 1500 meters 5/08 Photos by © Jay Pfahl

Plant and Inflorescence Photo courtesy of Belize Botanic Gardens © and their Belize Botanic Garden Webpage

to and Common Name The Single-Rhizome Habenaria

Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]

A large sized, warm to cool growing, erect terrestrial from Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leewards, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago and the Windward Islands that is found at altitudes of 5 to 2800 meters as a common terrestrial in low weedy ground, wet areas along roadside ditches, wet meadows, road cuts, and thickets on wooded hillsides as well as damp, exposed steep slopes with a suterranean hairy tuber, an erect stem enveloped completely by purple-spotted grey green sheaths giving rise to ovate-lanceolate, thin, basally clasping leaves that are grayish underneath that blooms on a terminal, 8" [20 cm] long, laxly to densly many flowered, racemose inflorescence that has lanceolate, keeled floral bracts occuring in the fall and winter with nocturnally fragrant flowers.

Synonyms Habenaria bidentata Poepp. ex Steud. 1841; Habenaria brachyceras Spreng. 1826; Habenaria brachyceratitis Willd. 1805; Habenaria latifolia Kunth 1816; Habenaria laxiflora Poepp. & Endl. 1836; Habenaria maculosa Lindley 1835; Habenaria platantheroides Schltr. 1918; Habenaria sceptrodes Rchb.f. 1856; Habenaria sodiroi Schltr. 1915; Habenaria speciosa Poepp. & Endl. 1836; Habenaria stricta A. Rich. & Galeotti 1845; Habenaria triptera Rchb. f. 1849; Habenaria triptera var. heteroglossa Rchb. f 1850; Limnorchis laxiflora Rydb. 1901; Orchis fuciflora Crantz 1769; *Orchis monorrhiza Sw. 1788; Orchis setacea Jacq. 1760; Platanthera monorrhiza (Sw.) W.J.Schrenk 1977

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 111 Dodson 1980; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 766 Dodson 1982; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 COS 1991 as H speciosa; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1437 Atwood 1993; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1437a Atwood 1993; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 258 Bennett & Christenson 1995; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2002; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005

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