Mormodes buccinator, The Bugler

Mormodes buccinator ABG #07-1033 flowering at the Fuqua Orchid Center.

The twisted column makes this orchid instantly recognizable as a Mormodes.

The ivory lip of Mormodes buccinator is not the broad landing platform that bees encounter on many flowers. The sides are rolled back and almost meet at their edges, giving the lip a trumpet-like shape--hence the name buccinator (Latin, bugler).

Mormodes buccinator grows as an epiphyte in lowland forests in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil at 450 to 1500 meters (1500 to 5,000 ft.) elevation.

This has been a good week for Mormodes in our warm greenhouse. We have four species in flower simultaneously. The blackened red Mormodes sinuata is featured in Thursday's post.