Hormidium pygmaeum (Hook.) Benth. & Hook. f. ex Hemsl. 1881 Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt, plant grown by OrchidMania

Plant and Flowers en situ Costa Rica Photo courtesy of Wilfried Löderbusch

and

Common Name Dwarf Hormidium

Flower Size 1/16" to 1/2" [.5 to 1 cm]

A common, hot growing, miniature, creeping epiphyte with tiny elliptic psuedobulbs that form dense mats, and is found in Florida, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leewards?, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Windwards, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in wet montane forests at elevations of sealevel to 1700 meters and has the smallest flowers of the genus which occur mostly in the spring, summer and fall on a terminal, very short, subsessile, subumbellate inflorescence arising on a mature, fusiform, bifoliate, dark green psuedobulb partially enveloped basally by a few scarious sheaths and carrying 2, apical, narrowly lanceolate, acute, conduplicate at the base leaves and forming an apical spathe giving rise to a terminal, subsessile, subumbellate, racemose inflorescence usually occuring with one to two flowers held close to the apex of the psuedobulb.

Synonyms Aulizeum pygmaeum (Hook.) Benth. 1892; Coelogyne triptera Brongn. 1834; Encyclia pygmaea (Hook.) Dressler 1961; Encyclia triptera (Brongn.) Dressler & G.E. Pollard 1971; Epidendrum caespitosum Poepp. & Endl. 1837-8; Epidendrum hioramii (Acuña & Roíg) Acuña & Alain 1960; Epidendrum humile Vell. 1831; Epidendrum monanthum Schltr. 1916; Epidendrum monanthum Steud. 1840; *Epidendrum pygmaeum Hook. 1833; Epidendrum uniflorum Lindl. 1839; Hormidium hioramii Acuña & Roíg 1936; Hormidium humile (Cogn.) Schltr. 1920; Hormidium tripterum (Brongn.) Cogn. 1898; Hormidium uniflorum (Lindl.) Heynh. 1841; Lanium hioramii (Acuña & Roíg) H.Dietr. 1980; Microstylis humilis Cogn. 1906; Prosthechea pygmaea (Hook.) W. E. Higgins 1997

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961 as Epidendrum pygmaeum; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970 as Epidendrum pygmaeum; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 070 Dodson 1980 as Encyclia pygmaea ; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 695 Dodson 1982 as Encyclia pygmaea; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 038 Bennett & Christenson 1993 as Encyclia pygmaea; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 as Prosthechea pygmaea;