The New Refugium Botanicum. Lycaste tricolor

Abstract

Lycaste tricolor Klotzsch ex Rchb.f. in Ca.Mueller, Ann. Bot. Syst. 6: 603. 1863. Syn.: Maxillaria tricolor Klotzsch, Allg. Gartenzeitung 20: 186. 1852, nom. illeg., non Maxillaria tricolor Ruiz & Pav. 1798. TYPE: Erroneously stated as “found in the greenhouses of the factory-owner Rauen in Berlin [...], flowered under the care of the gardener Gireoud, where they were introduced by Mr. Warszewicz from Guatemala” (holotype, B, destroyed). Epiphytic, caespitose, large herb forming tight clumps, up to 50 cm tall. Roots produced from the rhizome, mostly from the nodes supporting the stems, coarse, flexuous, to 2.5 mm in diameter. Rhizome short, stout, freely branching, concealed by appressed, imbricating, brown sheaths. Pseudobulbs ovoid, somewhat compressedancipitous, 6–8 ribbed, slightly shiny, without apical spines after shedding the leaves, 4–8 cm long, 2.5–4.0 cm wide, apically bifoliate, enclosed by 3–4, imbricating, foliaceous sheaths, the leafy blades progressively longer and wider toward the apex. Leaves plicate, petiolate, elliptic-lanceolate, acute to subacuminate, pale green, matte, sometime shedding at flowering, 30–60 × 6–10 cm. Inflorescences lateral, produced from the base of the previous year’s pseudobulb, simultaneously to the development of the new vegetative shoot, up to eight simultaneously, single–flowered racemes much shorter than the leaves; peduncle terete, stout, erect to arcuate, 6–11 cm long, with 3–4 membranous, acute, greenish to brown, lax, turgid bracts, a little shorter than the internodes, 6–9 mm long