MORMODES AWARD SUBMITTED FOR VERIFICATION

The fourth interesting Catasetinae flower picture that I received in January was a Mormodes awarded in the Cincinnati Judging Center  as Mormodes speciosa. The plant belongs to Jordan Hawley from Kentucky and was granted an HCC pending verification of the species. Jordan emailed me the award picture and a copy of the award requesting my verification.  From the picture, I thought that the flower did not appear to be M. speciosa so I requested a flower

The flower looked very much like the Mormodes colossa that was identified in December as the first in this group but to be sure I requested that Jordan send me one of the flowers and additional pictures of the entire plant and side views of the flower.  When identifying any flower the first question I ask is the origin of the plant, either the country or the vendor from whom it was purchased.  Jordan had purchased the plant at the World Orchid Conference in January 2007 but didn’t remember the vendor or country of origin.  The examination of the flower and the additional pictures confirmed my initial impression that this was a beautiful example of Mormodes colossa Reichenbach f. and not Mormodes speciosa Linden ex Lindley & Paxton.  Mormodes speciosa is endemic to Colombia and the lip is trilobate.  The lip of this flower is clearly not lobed.  On checking the Mormodes species, this flower fits perfectly the description from Robert Dressler’s  Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama which I paraphrase: Lip glabrous, not lobed, triangular-ovate,  base of the blade folded down but not curled, so that the lip appears triangular in side-view. 

It is should be noted that the Kew Monocot checklist follows the original description which named the species Mormodes colossum but since of Drs Dressler and Salazar call the species Mormodes colossa I have chosen to use their version of the name although it does not match either the original description or the Kew Monocot checklist.  I leave the question to the Latin scholars to decide which is correct. 

AN INTERESTING VENEZUELAN MORMODES

The third of the pictures I received recently was from a Venezuelan friend Rafael Vaamonde.  Rafael sent an email to a number of people interested in the Catasetinae asking about the identification of one of his Mormodes that had recently bloomed.   Rafael said he had purchased the plant from indians in Ciudad Bolivar, the capital of the south-eastern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.  The inflorecence measured 48 cm.

  

The first piece of information I always ask for when identifying a flower is “where does it come from”.   In this case we knew that it came from the Venezuelan state of Bolivar.   So I checked the list I have of  Venezuelan Mormodes and these flowers seemed to match Mormodes carnevaliana Salazar & G. Romero, described rather recently in 1994.   I sent an email requesting some additional information, but before anyone replied, I was forwarded a copy of an email from Dr. German Carnevali, the prominent Venezuela taxonomist which identified the flowers as Mormodes carnevaliana which had been named in his honor.   Alexis Pardo had sent the pictures to Dr. Carnevali and he of course recognized the species named in his honor. 

I checked the most recently issued AQ Plus 3.7 and this species has never been awarded in the AOS system.  This attractive species probably is not in cultivation in the US although it obviously is in Venezuela.  Thanks to Rafael for his permission to include his pictures.