Encyclia belizense

[pheli]

This orchid species is rarely grown because of its lack of showy colors. Most of the plants were imported from abroad many years ago.

[Keysguy]

Encyclia is an interesting genera. The vast majority of the species are virtually indistinguishable from each other to the untrained naked eye. I bet that 500 years from now someone will be able to demonstrate that they are all varieties of the same species.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by Keysguy

Encyclia is an interesting genera. The vast majority of the species are virtually indistinguishable from each other to the untrained naked eye. I bet that 500 years from now someone will be able to demonstrate that they are all varieties of the same species.

That's a bold statement! How about the similar looking large-flowered unifoliate Cattleyas, or the diminutive Schoenorchis fragrans, tixieri, seidenfadenii etc. just to pick two groups with very similar looking species?

[Keysguy]

Originally Posted by Arne

That's a bold statement! How about the similar looking large-flowered unifoliate Cattleyas, or the diminutive Schoenorchis fragrans, tixieri, seidenfadenii etc. just to pick two groups with very similar looking species?

Cattleya's are larger flowers that don't require a magnifying glass to see detail. Your other suggestions are genera with only a few species. My point was that the encyclia genera has a huge number of species and with a lot of those, to me, the flowers are virtually identical.

[Arne]

They look similar to you but not to Claude Hamilton.

I think you get my point.

[Mountaineer370]

It may be lacking showy colors, but it's still very pretty.