Altensteinia citrina Garay 1978

Drawing by © Culbertson & C Dodson

Common Name The Lemony Yellow Altensteinia

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Chimborazo province of Ecuador on steep hills in dry scrubby areas at elevations of 1500 to 2000 meters as a large sized, cool growing terrestrial with an erect stem carrying basal, glaucous leaves that blooms in the fall on an erect, enveloped by loose sheaths, to 30" [75 cm] long, rachis sessile, 1.2" [3 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence carrying small flowers that differ mainly in the clawed, lemony yellow lip which is obscurely bilobed apically and the 1 nerved petals.

!Altensteinia fimbriata is rthe most similar to this species has a greensih sessile lip with a rounded apex, elliptic dorsal sepal amd 3 veined petals with glabrous margins. while A citrina is a pale lemon yellow, clawed lip with a bilobed apex, lanceolate-spathulate dorsal sepal amd single veined petals with glabrous margins.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Flora of Ecuador 9 (225: 1): 155 Garay 1978 Drawing fide;

Icones Plantarum troopicarum Plate 403 Dodson 1989 Drawing fide

Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 2: 46 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2019 drawing fide

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