!Nidema ottonis (Rchb. f.) Britton & Millsp. 1920 Photo by JE Householder and the Atrium Biodiversity Information System

Another Flower Photo courtesy of Carlos Hajek

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Common Name The Ottonis Nidema [Garden In Berlin]

Flower Size 1/8" [5mm]

Found from Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia as a small sized, hot to warm growing, small creeping, unifoliate epiphyte in hot, wet, tropical forests at elevations of sealevel to 1000 meters and is the type species for the genus with a branching rhizome enveloped by distchous, evanescent bracts with distant, ellipsoid, lightly compressed pseudobulbs partially enveloped basally by a few scarious, evanescent sheaths and carrying a single, apical, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, leaf with a conduplicate base forming a short petiole, that blooms with fragrant flowers in the spring with a terminal, erect, 1 1/2" [ 4cm] long, fractiflex, laxly few flowered, racemose inflorescence with scarious, brown bracts, that is shorter than the leaves and arises from the apex of a newly emerging pseudobulb.

Synonyms Encyclia ottonis (Rchb. f.) Pabst 1972; *Epidendrum ottonis Rchb. f. 1858; Nidema boothii var australis Schlechter 1923; Nidema ottonis var. triandrum Schltr. 1922

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909 as Epidendrum ottonis; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 as Epidendrum ottonis drawing fide; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960 as Epidendrum ottonis; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 as Epidendrum ottonis drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970 as Epidendrum ottonis drawing ok; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as Epidendrum ottonis drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 885 Dodson 1983 drawing ok ; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Orchids of Peru Plate 0112 Dodson & Bennett 1989 drawing fide; An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 drawing/fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 328 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho & Larramendi 2005 Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo seems to be N boothii; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok

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