Microchilus campanulatus Ormerod 2005

TYPE Drawing by © Ormerod and Harvard Pap. Bot. 9[2]: 396 fig 8 Ormerod 2005

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Bell Shaped Microchilus

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Bolivar state of Venezuela, Guyana and Surinam on cloud forest slopes and forests with clearings at elevations around 755 to 1395 meters as a miniature to small sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with a creeping, terete rhizome giving rise to an erect, terete stem carrying 6 to 7, dull to rich green above, paler dull green beneath, ovate-elliptic to oblong-elliptic, subacuminate, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, terminal, pubescent, 10 to 20.4" [25 to 51 cm] long overall, peduncle 6.8 to 8.8" "[17 to 22 cm] long, grey brown to dull greenish lavender, provided with several aborted floral bracts, rachis 3.2 to 8.4"" [8 to 21 cm] long, sublaxly to densely many flowered inflorescence with subrhombic to ovate-lanceolate, acute to subacuminate, much longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying externally pubescent flowers with greenish yellow sepals, the petals and lip whitish, the spur pale greenish yellow, or flowers white to buff white, or pale green and tawny basally and white apically.

"Microchilus campanulatus appears to be related to M procerus from the isolated Santa Marta Mountains in eastern Colombia. From the latter species it differs in the campanulate aspect of the flowers, the petals inequally obovate-dilatate in the apical quarter, the hypochile with a constricted apex before it expands into the epichile, and longer column. In M. procerus, the flowers appear rather narrowly ovoid in profile, the apical half of the petals is oblong-oblanceolate, the hypochile is not constricted apically, and the column is shorter .0108 (2.7 mm long). Microchilus campanulatus differs from M major in having flowers with an oblongoid (not obovoid) spur, petals that are obovate-dilatate in the apical quarter (vs. ligulate-oblanceolate petals), and broader sepals .072 to .08" versus .056 to .064" (1.8 to 2 vs. 1.4 to 1.6 mm)." Ormerod 2005

Syn2005ms Microchilus glandulifer Ormerod 2005

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 9[2]: 400 Ormerod 2009

Harvard Pap. Bot. 9[2]: 396 fig 8 Ormerod 2005 drawing fide;

Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 328 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 drawing fide;

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