!Porphyrostachys pilifera (Kunth) Rchb. f. 1854
Photos by © Eric Hunt
Photos courtesy of Dr. Leslie Garay Copyright ©, and the Dr Leslie Garay Archives
Drawing by © Barbara Culbertson/Dodson 1980
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THROUGH
Common Name The Ball-Carrying Porphyrostachys
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Azuay and Chimborazo provinces of Ecuador and Huanuco department of Peru in dry montane regions with scattered trees at elevations of 1100 to 2800 meters as a large sized, cool to cold growing litho-terrestrial with fasciculate, stout, tuberous roots with oblong-lanceolate to oblanceolate, acute leaves that narrow to the basal sheathing base and are withered or absent by blooming time in the spring and summer when a stout, slender, glabrous stem enveloped by tubular-cylindric, scarious sheaths with a free, triangular, acuminate apex stem arises with a to 5 1/2" [to 14 cm] long, showy, thick-cylindric, subdense or dense several to many flowered inflorescence with cucullate-ovate, acuminate floral bracts and carries relatively large, showy, glabrous, non-resupinate, longer than to as long as the glabrous ovary floral bracts and carrying scarlet to red flowers.
Text By Joseph Dougherty. Grows cold to cool; lithoterrestrial; bright light to full sun. I've seen this plant in the wild near Cuenca, Ecuador, growing on volcanic rock in full sun in baking temps during the day and really cold at night. Very tough and quite uncommon in cultivation. The attached photo is of a plant grown by Walter Shinn of San Francisco; it was recently awarded a CBR.
Synonyms *Altensteinia pilifera Kunth 1815; Stenoptera cardinalis Lindl.1840; Stenoptera pilifera (Kunth) C. Schweinf. 1940
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Nov. Gen. Sp. 1: 333 HBK 1816 as Altensteinia pilifera
Gen. Sp. Orchid. Pl.: 448 Lindley 1840 as Stenoptera cardinalis
* Xenia Orchid. 1: 18 Rchb.f 1854
Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 ;
Bot. Mus. Leafl. 8: 185 C Schweinfurth 1940 as Stenoptera pilifera;
Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965;
Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 5 257 - 320 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1974;
Flora of Ecuador 225[1] Orchidaceae Garay 1978 photo/drawing fide;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 272 Dodson 1980 drawing ok;
Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 40 pg 2492 - 2564 Brieger 2000 photos fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing/photo fide;
Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide;
Orquideas del Peru Freuler 2010 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #3 2011 photo fide;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 2: 108 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2019
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 2: 107 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2019 drawing fide
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