Orchid from Ecuador, truly weird, I think is a Scaphosepalum

Pleurothallis from Ecuador

A terrestrial orchid, very difficult to ID, even the genus eludes me. From Ecuador

Phragmipedium species from Ecuador

This orchid was in a garden.  The gardener told me it had been moved there from the site of a road construction.  The plant was growing well.

Dracula sp. from Ecuador

Pleurothallis matudana C. Schweinf. 1938 . Mindo, Ecuador

Pleurothallis index from Ecuador

A Maxillaria species from Ecuador

Dracula species, Ecuador, possibly Dracula lafleurii Luer & Dalström 1993

This may be a Sigmatostalix, the flowers are tiny and appear sequentially on a branched inflorescence

Photographed in a garden in Ecuador.  

An unidentified Pleurotallis species from Ecuador

I have not been able to identify it.

A Lankesterella sp.?

I found this plant in a pile of broken branches next to an earth road.    I had a hard time identifying this plant since even the genus eluded me.  KellyW of the Orchidsforum suggested that it was a Lankesterella.¹  

¹Zelenko, H., Bermudez, P. 2009.  Orchid species of Peru

Odontoglossum halli Lindley 1837, in Ecuador

I saw this plant in the orchid house of the Botanical Garden of Quito, Ecuador.  It is found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.  This species is part of the Epidendroides group inside the group of orchids related to Oncidium.¹   There were plants of this species inside and outside the orchid house.  The plant growing outside in the trunk of a tree, growing under shade had more flowers.  The plant growing inside the orchid house was sitting in the ground and exposed to a much higher level of light.    The flowers of the two plants I photographed were subtly different, the one outside had lips that were not flat, the one in the orchid house had a flat lip, the marking and the coloring of the flowers were also slightly different.

  

¹Zelenko H. et al. 2002.  Orchids, The pictorial encyclopedia of Oncidium

Epidendrum fimbriatum Kunth 1816, a tiny gem from high altitude wet forests

I saw this plant in the orchid house of the Botanical Garden of Quito, Ecuador.    This plant except that it is found in Peru.¹  It is also found in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia.   The flowers were at the tip of a long inflorescence that seemed to have been blooming for a long time.  It was being cultivated on a raised bed of gravel.

¹Zelenko, H., Bermudez, P. 2009.  Orchid species of Peru

Encyclia brassavolae (Reichenbach f.) Lindley ex Stein 1892

I saw this plant in the orchid house of the Botanical Garden of Quito, Ecuador.   Although this orchid was not identified with a tag, the flowers are unmistakable.   It was growing on a raised bed in the middle of the green house.  It had a single flower.    The plant was in excellent condition.   It is clear it thrives in a diurnal range of 45F during the night and 77F during the day.

This plant is found in Central America and Mexico at altitudes between 1200 and 2500 meters in wet pine oak evergreen forest, it is reported to sometimes grow on rocks.¹  This plant was placed by Withner in the genus Panarica.  In the Cattleyas and their relatives: The debatable Epidendrums, it is named Panarica brassavolae (Reichenbach f.) Withner & Harding. 

 

¹Withner, C. L., Harding, P. A. 2004. Cattleyas and their relatives:  The debatable Epidendrums

Maxillaria sanderiana Reichenbach f. ex Sander 1888, at the Botanical Garden in Quito, Ecuador

I saw this plant in the orchid house of the Botanical Garden of Quito, Ecuador.   Although this orchid was not identified with a tag, the flowers resemble the flowers of Maxillaria sanderiana that are in my books.  Max. sanderiana is native of Ecuador and Peru, where it is epiphytic or lithophytic on stony slopes.¹   The flowers of this species are variable in the extent of purple around the base of the floral segments, and the size of the lip.²  This orchid was in a raised bed composed of coarse gravel, if there was a pot buried in the gravel it was impossible to say.

¹La Croix, I. F.  2008. The new encyclopedia of orchids: 1500 species in cultivation

²Zelenko, H., Bermudez, P. 2009.  Orchid species of Peru

Maxillaria brunnea Linden & Rchb. f. 1854, near Mindo, Ecuador, "in situ" on a fallen tree by the road.

During my visit to Ecuador, I was able to see many orchids, this includes many that were on trees and branches that had fallen by the roadside.  This is the case of this orchid.  A huge storm had toppled trees and broken branches some weeks before my visit to the Mindo area.  This plant was growing, on the side of a tree that had fallen by the roadside.  The trunk of the tree had several orchids but the Maxillaria was the only one that was blooming.

Maxillaria fletchteriana Rolfe 1913, "in situ" in Mindo, Equador

I saw this species in Mindo, Equador.   This species is native of eastern Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.  The flowers are large, fragrant and long lasting.  I saw it at 4500 feet of altitude, at a wet forest, full of orchids of all description.

Porroglossum amethystinum a tiny and yet very weird orchid from Ecuador

When I first saw this little orchid I was totally stumped as to what orchid genus it could belong.  My ignorance can be excused on the basis that I had never previously seen an orchid of the genus Porroglossum.  These orchids are known for the particularity that they have a sensitive lip that retracts into the flower when touched.  The movement is triggered by an insect which is forced the lip’s action into contact with the plant pollinia.  There are a few specialists orchid growers in the United States that keep Porroglossum species but I have never seen this one before.  The flowers are lovely but small, the inflorescence is quite long in comparison with the flower size.  Because of the many other orchids with larger flowers in the Cabañas Armonia site I almost missed this one.   I saw this plant in the town of Mindo Ecuador.

Encyclia aspera in Mindo, Ecuador

I found this Encyclia aspera plant growing in a garden in Mindo, Ecuador.  The flowers were in poor condition probably due to insect attack.  The plant was in a shady spot which probably accounts for the few flowered inflorescence as Encyclia are generally plants that need from bright light to full sun to do their best.   This plant was rescued from an area where the vegetation was cut down to make way for a road.  I must confess that as an orchidist it was a peculiar experience to walk the trails in the Mindo area and see hundreds of orchids of every imaginable description in the decaying branches that lay on the sides of the trails.  I am sure that I would have been able to gather, just from the stuff lying on the ground, a collection of plants to rival that of a botanical garden in variety and sheer size.    You might think I would have been tempted to gather a few of the choosiest varieties to take home but I knew better.  Probably none of the plants would survive for long away from their native temperature and humidity regime in the Andes Mountains.

Many years ago an elderly friend of mine brought from Peru a Sobralia orchid.   How he managed to pass through customs with that plant is mystery to me to this day as it was not a tiny thing.   Well, things were different back then, and I am taking about a time decades before the terrorist attacks in New York made the airport inspectors adamant about groping everyone and their grandma.  The moral I guess is that never underestimate an orchid grower hell bent on bringing an orchid home.  My friend was as excited as a hen with a newly laid egg with his Sobralia plant.  He waxed lyrical about the huge, brightly colored flowers of the orchid.   He diligently showered tender and loving care on the orchid but it was all in vain.  Shortly after arrival the plant leaves turned black, fell and then the rest of the plant became something similar but not quite exactly like, a pile of mush.  Since then I have seen this chain of events replayed with a variety of orchids, all of them cooler growing plants brought on impulse by people dazzled by the beautiful or unusual flowers.