!Mormolyca ringens [Lindley]Schltr. 1914

Another View Photo courtesy of Jay Pfahl.

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Common Name The Rigid Mormolyca

Flower Size to 1" [2.2 cm]

From Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica as a small to medium sized, warm to hot growing epiphyte found on trees in dense humid forests from sealevel to 1400 meters, with clustered, arising from a wiry rhizome, subrotund to ellipsoid, compressed pseudobulbs enveloped basally by distichous sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, linear-ligulate to narrowly lanceolate, acute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into a conduplicate petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, single flowered, 10" [24 cm] long inflorescence that has brown, scarious bracts and is longer or equal to the length of the leaves and occurs all spring and summer if well grown. Best planted in a wooden basket given moderate shade and watered well during growth and a lessening after maturity.

Synonyms Mormolyca lineolata Fenzl. 1849; Mormolyca schweinfurthiana Garay & M. Wirth 1959; *Trigonidium ringens Lindley 1840

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 878 Dodson 1983; Fieldiana Biology, Flora Costa Ricensis Family # 39 Orchidaceae, subtribes Maxillariinae and Oncidiinae Atwood & Mora 1997;

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