Maxillaria arachnitiflora Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 Photo by Allen Black ©

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Common Name The Spider Flower Maxillaria

Flower Size 1" wide [2.5 cm]

Found in Costa Rica and Panama in cloud forests at elevations of 400 to 1400 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with slender pseudobulbs enveloped totally by imbricate, conduplicate leaf bearing sheaths and carrying a single apical, narrowly to broadly elliptic, conduplicate into the petiolate base, acute apically leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a basal, 3" [7.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence enveloped by obtuse, apiculate bracts. This species is similar to M reichenheimiana and M pachyacron but differs in unspotted leaves, a very pronounced column foot, sepals and petals more acuminate with the tips often spiraled or pendant and the callus reaches to just above the middle of the lip. .

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1338 Atwood 1989; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997;

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