Thrixspermum bromeliforme


flower of extraction done and
photo provided by Dr. Jarrell

Thrixspermum bromeliforme                             photo credit http://www.rv-orchidworks.com/orchidtalk/orchids-other-genera-bloom/20176-thrixspermum-bromeliforme.html

Thrixspermum bromeliforme (Suarez) is a species of orchid that is included in the subtribe Aeridinae. It is endemic to the Philippines. Its flowers can be bright yellow or white with brownish red spots on them. It only produces one flower at a time and the flower only lasts one day. The flowers have a fragrant odor to them and bloom between February to April and June to August. T. bromeliforme grows best in warm to warm-intermediate climates and does not have a dormant period. The image in the middle is that of our class specimen, which may look different when compared to that of the image of same “assumed” species pictured on the right. Differences in the leaves can be seen, and these differences may or may not be attributed to environmental conditions and/or regional variation. You can also notice that the bracts of our class specimen are more tightly clustered than those of the image on the right. Also our class specimen does not have the inflorescence that is seen in the image on the right. Further research and more time is needed for the class specimen to determine if it is indeed of the bromeliforme species. However, it is definitely of the Thrixspermum genus.

DNA extracted from this plant in class by Courtnee Pettus

References

http://purificacionorchids.com/index.php/gallery/orchids/8

http://www.rv-orchidworks.com/orchidtalk/orchids-other-genera-bloom/20176-thrixspermum-bromeliforme.html

http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=459632

3 thoughts on “Thrixspermum bromeliforme

  1. It is kind of short. You should find more information about the plants such as how long the stems and the leaves are or how stem look when they grow,etc

  2. Overall, this is a solid post but as the first comment states, it is brief. It is always useful to give some information on dimensions, both vegetative and floral when describing a plant.

    Next, the caption of the flower from our research plant needs a word (“flower of extraction”?) so that it makes sense.

    Next, and this is something that you could add to the post (in your own words). While the flower is a pretty good match (some species differences are very subtle), the vegetation seems very different. This could be an environmental difference or it could be regional variation in the species. Notice that the leaves in the other picture are very succulent compared to our extraction specimen and also, the inflorescence has many more bracts. Our specimen is still flowering (one at a time) but has yet to develop an inflorescence that looks like that in the picture (the bracts seemed to be tightly clustered at the end of the inflorescence instead of evenly spaced. While, it is definitely a Thrixspermum, more work is needed to verify identity (our plant may be correctly identified and the image is not – time will tell).

  3. The fact that it blooms one flower at a time that only lasts a day is interesting. How big do the flowers get?

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