Maxillaria splendens Poepp. & Endl. 1836 sect. Multiflorae Christenson 2013 TYPE for sect. Photo by Eric Hunt, plant grown by Orchid Mania

Common Name The Grand Maxillaria

Flower Size to 2" [5 cm]

Found only in Peru [recent research confirms] in very wet montane forests at elevations around 2000 meters as a small to medium sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte or occasional terrestrial with ovate-oblong, compressed pseudobulbs that are tapered at the base and subtended by several, foliaceous, imbricate, sheaths with distichous bases that carries a single apical, lorate, acute, coriaceous leaf with a conduplicate petiole that blooms on 8 or fewer, axillary fasciles arising from a mature growth, with 5 to 6 approximate elongate, tubular, long acuminate membraneous bracts with 8 to 1 flowers occuring in the fall.

This species has for years been given a range of Venezuela to Bolivia and Brazil yet with the recent rediscovery of the original M splendens and reexamination of new material of M buchtienii has shown that the 2 must become separate species and as such leaves M splendens with a distribution only in Peru.

Synonyms Maxillaria ochroleuca Lodd. ex Lindley; Ornithidium ochroleucum (Lodd. ex Lindl.) Senghas 1993

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Iconografia de Orchidaceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 drawing not = M buchtienii; Flora Brasilica Vol XII VII 115-147 Hoehne 1953 drawing not = M buchtienii; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 6 1958; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing not = M buchtienii; Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 2 Pabst & Dungs 1977 drawing not = M buchtienii; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = M buchtienii; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 546 Dodson 1989 drawing not M buchtienii; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1364 Atwood 1989 drawing not see M buchtienii; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 not = M buchtienii; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 115 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1B lieferung 28 1713 - 1776 Brieger 1993; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing not = M buchtienii; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo not; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orquideas del Peru Freuler 2010 photo fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------