Small Prescott Orchid

Plants to 40 cm, glabrous (except roots). Roots fasciculate, fingerlike, 3–8 mm diam., fleshy. Leaves 2–4; petiole 1–3 cm; blade elliptic to suborbiculate, 1.5–8 × 0.8–3 cm, base cuneate, margins entire, apex acute to rounded. Inflorescences slender; scape 12–31 cm, partially covered by sheathing bracts; spike to 17 cm, densely many-flowered; floral bracts ovate to lanceolate, clasping base of ovary, 1.5–4 mm, apex acuminate. Flowers minute, glabrous; sepals reflexed-spreading, pinkish, 1-veined, 1–2.2 × 1 mm; dorsal sepal reflexed, ovate, curled; lateral sepals adnate with lip forming short mentum, triangular to deltate, slightly larger than dorsal sepal; petals reflexed, white or pink, narrowly obovate to oblong, 1–1.5 × 0.5 mm; lip erect, white, basally auriculate, hoodlike, enclosing column, shallowly saccate, 1–2 mm, fleshy, apiculate; column adaxially adnate to sepal tube, minute (0.3 mm), apex winged; ovary sessile, 1.5–3.5 mm. Capsules erect, ellipsoid, 4 mm.

Fla.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America (Galapagos Islands).

Flowering Dec--early Mar.

Hammocks; 0--20m.

Cranichis oligantha Swartz, Prodr., 120. 1788; C. micrantha Sprengel; Prescottia gracilis Schlechter; P. myosurus Reichenbach ex Grisebach; P. panamensis Schlechter