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.