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Miltonia clowesii
Miltonia clowesii is one of the
so-called Brazilian miltonias, which includes the intermediate to warm growing species from Brazil. These are different
from the Andean species that are cool-growing and are included in the genus Miltoniopsis and used to be called miltonias (well, if we think about the hybrids, they still are).
Miltonia clowesii is one of
the multifloral species, a group that contains most of the Brazilian miltonias, and this means that flowers are
produced on long, upright species. Inside this group, the different species open their flowers at different rates
of succession. As an example, Miltonia flavescens
opens their flowers on a short succession and thus the inflorescences can have all the flowers open at the same
time. Miltonia clowesii, on
the other hand, represents the other extreme, that is, the flowers open in a very long succession. With this, inflorescences
of Miltonia clowesii rarely
have more than 2-3 flowers open at once, and by the time the last flowers open the first ones have already faded.
This is not a very desirable feature of the species, but on the other hand the individual flowers are very attractive.
Individual flowers are about 2" or more tall and quite colorful. Miltonia
clowesii, like most Brazilian miltonias, grows inside the coastal mountain
forests, from just above sea level to more than 3000 ft. elevation. Plants are mostly found under quite shady and
humid conditions. The range for each particular species is quite difficult to delimit, as reported locations are
not geographically separated from mountain stretches where the species are not found. In any case, for Miltonia clowesii the main area of occurrence
is in the Espírito Santo State and northern section of Rio de Janeiro. Without flowers, plants of Miltonia clowesii are virtually indistinguishable
from those of M. cuneata, M. candida and M.
russeliana. Flower shape wise, the species is closer to Miltonia cuneata, and color wise it is very
similar to M. russeliana.
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Distribution Map for Miltonia clowesii. As mentioned, distribution ranges are quite inaccurate for the genus, but the representation
here gives a good idea of the region where the species is most abundant.
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On 1,
we see the most common color for flowers of Miltonia clowesii. This particular one is an artificially propagated plant whose parents were selected for
flower quality. In this individual case, flowers have sepals, petals and lip that are much wider than the average
natural plants of the species. Also, this plant has been picked for good color and short flower spikes, besides
the individual shape of flowers. Compact inflorescences are very rare and very desirable for the species.
On 2, we have a flower of regular
shape for the species, but that has been selected for flower color. The white portion of the lip is almost completely
covered with purple, and the markings on sepals and petals almost disappear due to the dark background. Then again,
color this dark is very rare on the species and that is why this one has been selected for seedling production. |
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