Maxillaria alba (Hook.) Lindl. 1832

Plant and Flowers Photo courtesy of Sune Holt ©

Common Name The White Flowered Maxillaria

Flower Size 11.2" [3 cm]

Found in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil at elevations of 250 to 1900 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with an ascending rhizome giving rise to ancipitous, ovate, smooth pseudobulbs enveloped basally by imbricate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, subcoriaceous, linear to narrowly elliptic, gradually narrowing below into the shortly petiolate base and the obtuse apex that blooms in the winter and spring on a single flowered, 3/4 to 1 .2" [2 to 3 cm] long, inflorescence arising from between the cataphylls of an arising shoot and carrying a fragrant flower.

Synonyms Broughtonia alba (Hook.) Spreng. 1826; Camaridium album (Hook.) Hoehne 1947; *Dendrobium album Hook. 1825; Maxillaria hedyosma Schltr. 1921; Maxillariella alba (Hook.) M.A. Blanco & Carnevali 2007

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909; Flora Brasilica Vol XII VII 115-147 Hoehne 1953 as Camaridium alba; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 6 1958; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 4 1970; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 144 Dodson 1980; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 841 Hamer/Dodson 1983; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Pate 1334 Dodson 1989; AOS Bulletin Vol 63 No 3 1994 photo; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 499 Bennett & Christenson 1998; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006;

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