IOSPE PHOTOS

Common Name Dove Orchid or Holy Ghost Orchid - The Stately Peristeria

Flower Size 2" [5 cm]

This is the national flower of Panama and is commonly called the 'Dove Orchid' or 'Holy Ghost Orchid' and it is easy to see the dove sitting on the nest within the flower. It is found as a large sized, warm to hot growing terrestrial or lithophytic orchid from Costa Rica Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Venzuela where it is found in shaded grassland edges and stone outcrops in tropical wet forests at elevations of 100 to 700 meters with clustered, large, ovoid or conical pseudobulbs enveloped baslly by imbricate, papery sheaths with the upper 2 being leaf bearing and carrying 3 to 5 apical, plicate, braodly lanceolate to elliptic, acute or acuminate, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate short petiolate base leaves It blooms from July till August and has a rigidly erect, to 4 1/2' [135 cm] long, basal inflorescence with 10 to 15, campanulate, subglobose, waxy flowers and appearing on a new growth and opening as the pseudobulb has matured but before the leaves drop. The flowers opens successively over a long period with many [10 to 20], highly scented, waxy, cup-shaped flowers, but only 4 to 6 open at any one time.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1965; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 4 1970; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 399 Dodson 1980; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003;

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