page_title: Scuticaria (plant)
section_title: Species
hierarchical_section_title: Scuticaria (plant) / Species
caption_attribution_description: English: Scuticaria hadwenii
context_page_description: Scuticaria is a genus of orchids comprising 9 species native to Belize, Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Members of this genus have showy flowers and long cylindrical leaves. They are epiphytic, occasionally lithophytic or terrestrial, that grow pending and are cespitously, or reptant and ascending, which exist is three isolated areas of South America, in Ecuador, Amazon Forest and Serra do Mar and Serra da Mantiqueira mountains, in Brazil, both in shady and sunny places.
  The genus Scuticaria has been traditionally placed close to Maxillaria but recent research shows they are more closely related to the genus Bifrenaria. Despite their interesting appearance, they are hardly seen in nature and, because their culture is complicated, they are not common in private collections and orchid shows either. No other use for these species is reported besides ornamentation. Because it is a well established genus, formed by a few species that are reasonably easy to separate, there were few publications about them during the last decades.
context_section_description: Because of its highly particular morphologic characteristics which allow immediate identification, its restricted species distribution, and its comparatively low variability, since the genus Scuticaria was established by Lindley, only ten species were formally described and there has never been much confusion concerning the distinguishing of any of the species. Out of these ten, nine are generally accepted, the tenth being normally accepted not as a species but as a variety. For identification purposes, the species can be split as follows:
  Only two species present erect leaves and are the only ones frequently found as lithophytes, Scuticaria irwiniana, easily known recognized because of its flowers without any stains on the internally entirely purple and externally whitish sepals and petals, with white labellum, striped of purple. This species generally can be identified even without flowers because of its reptant, slightly ascendant growth, and longer rhizome than any other species. Scuticaria strictifolia also has erect leaves but occasionally, when cultivated under insufficient light, their leaves can be narrower and slightly bent making the distracted observer find hard to differentiate it from S. hadwenii. The Brazilian taxonomist Guido Pabst considered this species a variety of the later.
  All species remaining are epiphytic with pendant habit. Scuticaria hadwenii, due to its several more or less isolated groups of populations along Serra do Mar, mostly on the west side of this chain of mountains, spreading throughout the interior highland in some states of Brazil, is the Scuticaria species that presents most variable colors. It can be separated from S. strictifolia because shows leaves always pending, flowers of more vivid colors and by the interior of the labellum, which ordinarily is more pubescent. There is a variety denominated dogsonii, native from Guyana, which is more floriferous.
  The two other species from Espírito Santo State are highly different from each other. Scuticaria kautskyi usually has more or less uniform orange color on its sepals and petals, with their bases slightly lighter and dotted of greenish-yellow. Their labellum is white showing few colored drawings and narrow terminal lobe, slightly deflected. The other species from this state, Scuticaria novaesii presents flowers with green-yellow segments, intensely spotted with dark brown and wide and flat labellum terminal lobe, with clearly marked by radial multicolored lines.
  Scuticaria itirapinensis, the last species of Brazilian southeast, is the one that closely resembles Amazonian Scuticaria steelei, although it can be easily separated because of its strong yellow flowers and much shorter leaves, besides slight differences on the proportions of floral structures. A Scuticaria steelei presents entirely pale yellow flowers, completely covered by spaced small darker stains, However it is not even necessary to observe the flowers to identify it as their leaves are about one meter long, and there are references of plants measuring almost one and a half meter.
  The last two Scuticariaare isolated in forests of Peru and Ecuador and are similar to each other. They are different from all other because of the proportions of floral segments. The labellum is much larger when compared to their sepals and petals than it is on other species. Moreover, their petals are striped of brown and much smaller than the sepals, showing a greater difference than it is found on the other species. From each other, they can be separated mostly by the shape of the labellum. Scuticaria salesiana presents more rounded intermediate lobe, and Scuticaria peruviana has it more rectangular, with the apex truncated, almost in a straight line.
  In 2008, a new species of Scuticaria, S. bahiensis has been described from Bahia state in Brazil but so far it remains mostly unknown.
caption: Scuticaria hadwenii is the most variable among Scuticaria species and widespread through a large area in Southeast of Brazil.
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