Microchilus utriculatus (Dressler) E.C.Smidt & M.W.Chase 2021

Drawings by © Herrera and The Epidendra Website

Common Name The Small Hose Aspidogyne [refers to the large saccate nectary]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Limon province of Costa Rica at elevations around 700 meters as a miniature to small sized, warm growing terrestrial with an erect leafy stem carrying about 5, variegated beneath, lanceolate-ovate, acuminate, broadly cuneate to subcordate below into the petiolate base leaves that blooms in the summer on an erect, terminal, to 5.6" [13 cm] long ovarall, peduncle to 4" [10 cm] long, rachis 1.2" [3 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence with papery, elliptic-ovate, acuminate floral bracts and carrying small, brownish green flowers with a white lip and glabrous petals.

"This species is distinctive in the relatively small flowers with large saccate nectary (whence the epithet); the lip is subequally 3 lobed. The narrow, shield-like viscidium suggests that this is a member of the Platythelys group, though the lip is only slightly constricted below the "epichile". Dressler 1993

Synonyms Aspidogyne utriculata (Dressler) Szlach. 1995; *Erythrodes utriculata Dressler 1993

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Orquídea (Mexico City), n.s., 13(1-2): 260, f. 2. 1993 as Erythrodes utriculata;

Fragm. Florist. Geobot., Suppl. 3: 115 (1995 as Aspidogyne utriculata;

Manual De Plants De Costa Rica Vol III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 as Erythrodes utriculata

Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 419 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 as Aspidogyne utriculata drawing fide;

* Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 197: 345 E.C.Smidt & M.W.Chase 2021

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