Native to Venezuela
Edited 17 April 2007
© Nina Rach
Dr. Leslie Garay writes "The Dunsterville illustration under S. liliastrum is now Sob. elizabethae." (pers. comm. 1/2002)
In October 2001, we trekked to Venezuela's Gran Sabana in Bolivar State and observed thousands of medium-tall, blooming plants that we thought at first to be Sobralia liliastrum. The flowers were nearly identical to Dunsterville's line-drawings of that species. Plants grew to about 1.5 meters tall in open conditions on a rocky slope at 3000-4500 ft elevation, in a clean quartz sand amidst boulders. Image at right photographed by Nina Rach. Note the long, recurved sepals (7+ cm. long).
In 2003, Gustavo Romero Gonzalez revisted this complex of white sobralias found in the Venezuelan Guyana [elizabethae,
granitica,
liliastrum] and published his thoughts in Harvard Papers in Botany.
.
See the webpage on White Sobralias.
G.C.K. Dunsterville and Leslie A. Garay (1961). Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated, Volume 2, pp. 322-323. [text + line drawing]
G.C.K. Dunsterville and Leslie A. Garay (1979). Orchids of Venezuela: An Illustrated Field Guide, p.934. [line drawing only].
Gustavo A. Romero (1998) Venezuela, Orchid Paradise. 128p. [photo of S. liliastrum on pg. 168 is probably S. elizabethae]
Gustavo A. Romero Gonzalez (2003) "The Sobralia liliastrum (Orchidaceae: Sobraliinae) complex in the Venezuelan Guyana," in: Harv. Pap. Botany 8(1): 115-129.
Gustavo A. Romero and German Carnevali Fernandez-Concha (15 July 2000) Orchids of Venezuela, A Field Guide (2nd Ed.). Caracas: Armitano Editores, 3 gray volumes in a purple slipcase. [70 extra drawings added to the 1050 previously published by Dunsterville and Garay in the original 1979 Field Guide, and taxonomic corrections.]
Robert H. Schomburgk (1841) illustration in: "Sertum Orchidacearum".
International Plant Names Index [IPNI],
www.ipni.org
