Cattleya labiata

Cattleya labiata, also known as the crimson cattleya or ruby-lipped cattleya, is the type species of Cattleya, discovered in 1818 in Brazil.

Cattleya labiata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Monocots
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Orchidaceae
Subfamily:	Epidendroideae
Genus:	Cattleya
Subgenus:	Cattleya subg. Cattleya
Section:	Cattleya sect. Cattleya
Species:	C. labiata
Binomial name
Cattleya labiata Lindl.

Description

This plant grows in Pernambuco, Alagoas, Ceará and Sergipe in northeastern Brazil and is considered of Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN. It attains different sizes depending on the area from which it originates. Plants in Pernambuco are smaller with mostly lilac flowers. The interior part of the flower is a dark lilac color.^[1] Plants from Alagoas are bigger and have larger flowers. Some varieties, such as Cattleya labiata var. semialba, have large white flowers with a touch of yellow. There is another variety of semialba, with lilac in the inferior part of the flower. The plant is an epiphyte, growing up in trees, where light is plentiful. There are many other places where the plant also grows, such as directly on rock with little soil.

The plant itself is a medium-sized unifoliate (labiate) Cattleya, with a medium-sized rhizome. The plant has long leaves, with a tough (coriaceous) consistency because of the aridity in the canopy of trees, due to a short dry season. For water requirements, the plant has a pseudobulb under every leaf to store water and nutritive substances during the short dry season. In the wet season new leaves grow rapidly, producing a large flowered inflorescence. Flowers are white or lavender colored with a darker spot in the lip. Pollination is performed by insects, usually by a scent-collecting male euglossine bee. The result is a capsule with a very large number of seeds (10,000-20,000).^{[citation needed]}

The diploid chromosome number of C. labiata has been variously determined as 2n = 40, 41, and 46. The haploid chromosome number of C. labiata has been variously determined as n = 21 and 21.^[2]

History

Its discovery by English naturalist William Swainson led to intense interest for orchids in Victorian society, leading to fierce competition to rediscover the flower's precise habitat.^[3][4]