Scelochilus heterophyllus Rchb.f. 1876 Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt

LATELATE

Common Name The Differing Leaves Scelochilus

Flower Size [.4" [1 cm]

Found in Ecuador in wet montane, cloud forests on the western slopes of the Andes at elevations of 950 to 2000 meters as a small sized, cool and pendant growing epiphyte with oblong cylindric [mature plants] psuedobulbs enveloped basally by several, distichous, imbricating, lower leafless and upper leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying a single, apical, obovate, acute, leaf that tapers to a conduplicate base and blooms in the late winter through late spring on a basal, 12" [30 cm] long, few to several flowered inflorescence arising on a mature pseudobulb through the leaf sheaths. Immature plants of this species appear to be equitant fan orchids and can have bloom spikes, yet with age they do develop psuedobulbs.

Synonyms Comparettia heterophylla [Rchb.f] Chase & NH Wms 2008

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 292 Dodson 1980 drawing good but does not show pair of calli on lip; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok; Orchid Species Culture: Oncidium, Bakers 2006; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 No 12 2008 photo as Comparettia heterophylla

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