Xylobium leontoglossum (Rchb. f.) Rolfe 1889 Photo by © Eric Hunt and His Orchid Website

Plant and Flowers in situ Cundinamarca Colombia Photo by © Andreas Philipp

Immature Plant in situ Valle de Cocora Quindio Colombia Elevation 2400 to 2800 meters Photo by © Jay Pfahl

Common Name The Lion's Tongue Xylobium

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru at elevations around 2000 meters as a large sized, cool growing epiphyte or occasional terrestrial with close set, ovoid-ellipsoid pseudobulbs carrying a single, apical, plicate, lanceolate-elliptic to elliptic-oblong, acute, gradually narrowing below into the cuneate, sulcate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a lateral, semi-erect, [15" [37 cm] long, racemose, rather loosely several to many flowered inflorescence arising on a newly matured pseudobulb with 3 to 4 loose, tubular, remote bracts and very small floral bracts.

Synonyms *Maxillaria leontoglossa Rchb. f. 1855; Xylobium gracile Schltr. 1921; Xylobium squalens var. gracile (Schltr.) C. Schweinf. 1944

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten III Ecuador Schlechter 1921 as X gracile; Beitrage Zur Orchideenkunde Von Colombia 27:83 Schlechter 1924; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 4 1970 drawing fide; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing fide; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide; Las Orquideas del Peru Bezverhov 2011 photo fide

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