Odontoglossum hirtzii Dalström 2015 SECTION Auriculatum SERIES Cristatum Dalstrom 2020
photo by © Guido Deburghgraeve/TYPE Drawing by Dalstrom
LATER
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name Hirtz's Odontoglossum [German Engiuneer and Orchid Collector in Ecuador current]
Flower Size 2" [5 cm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador seasonally extremely wet cloud forests of the western slopes of the Andes at elevations around 2000 to 2800 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing epiphyte with caespitose, on a compact bracteate rhizome, ovoid to pyriform, apically obtuse, ancipitous and slightly compressed, commonly mottled with purple pseudobulbs subtended by 6 to 7 basal sheaths and carrying a single to 2 on mature plants, conduplicate, narrowly ovate, acute, subpetiolate base leaves that blooms in the late summer, fall, winter and later spring on an erect, axillary, from the base of the outermost sheath, erect and arching, to 10.4" [26 cm] long, almost straight to loosely flexuous, racemose, to 8-flowered inflorescence with appressed, scale-like, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying stellate, showy flowers.
"Odontoglossum hirtzii differs from the similar and locally sympatric O. armatum Rchb.f. by a slightly larger overall size, a larger and pandurate lip with distinctly cordate to hastate basal angles of the lamina, much more developed purple-striped callus keels, and with considerably larger column wings, versus a more slender habit, a cuneate lip lamina with a less developed, generally plain white callus and insignificant or no column wings for O. armatum. Odontoglossum hirtzii is also superficially similar to O. cristatellum Rchf.b., O. cristatum Lindl. and O. furcatum Dalström but is readily distinguished from them by the distinctly pandurate lip lamina and commonly purple mottled pseudobulbs, versus a more cordate lamina for the latter species, which all have plain green to yellowish or sometimes reddish pseudobulbs without any mottling." Dalstrom 2015
Synonyms Oncidium hirtziana J.M.H.Shaw 2016
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *LANKESTERIANA 15(1): 51. Dalstrom 2015 drawing/photo fide; The Odontoglossum Story Dalstrom, Higgins & Deburghgraeve 2020 photo/drawing fide
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
