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.
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