Orchid Species: Eulophia maculata

ORIGIN: This is a pantropical, medium sized, erect, cool to hot growing terrestrial orchid found from southern Florida, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Lewwards, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Windwards, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Bennin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Guinea Bissau, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Islands, Zaire, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Natal South Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar and Reunion in leaf litter below trees and on rocky scrub slopes at elevations up to 1200 meters.

DESCRIPTION: This is a pantropical, medium sized, erect, cool to hot growing terrestrial orchid with dark greenish brown, lightly sulcate, ovoid pseudobulbs carrying a single, apical, suberect to spreading, coriaceous, oblong-elliptic, green mottled with lighter green leaves. It has nonfragrant flowers that appear in the late summer and fall on a basal, erect, to 12 long, racemose, laxly 12 or more flowered and needs even watering and fertilizer year round. All the photos are from plants that have appeared on my property in the Florida Keys. It has really become quite common in the right areas all through the Florida Keys.

FLOWER SIZE: About 3/4 inch [2 cm] -- information provided by Jay Pfahl, author of the Internet Orchid Species Encyclopedia (IOSPE).

Most awarded/recent cultivars: Oecl. maculata 'Norma' (1995)