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Bletia purpurea
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ORIGIN: This species is found from Florida, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leewards, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, the Windwards, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and northern Brazil in dry woods and fields or on cliff faces, or at the base of tree trunks or in swamps up to 2000 meters.
DESCRIPTION: Small to large sized, cool to warm growing terrestrials or on rocks with subterranean, radish-shaped pseudobulbs with 2 deciduous, elliptic, petiolate, plicate leaves found that bloom in the spring and early summer on a basal, to 5' [150 cm] long, erect, basal, sometimes branching inflorescence with a few to many [9 to 40], color variable, successively opening flowers arising on a mature pseudobulb.
In the Caribbean the natives boil the pseudobulbs and drink the broth as a cure for poisoning from eating bad fish. They also split the bulb and use it as a compress for open wounds as well as making a tea from dried pseudobulbs as a basis for a tonic that has a spicy taste.
FLOWER SIZE: 2 inches [5 cm]
-- information provided by Jay Pfahl, author of the
Internet Orchid Species Encyclopedia (IOSPE).