page_title: Isabelia
section_title: Distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Isabelia / Distribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Isabelia violacea
context_page_description: Isabelia is an orchid genus formed by three tiny species and one natural hybrid, spread from the Northeast of Brazil to Argentina, which are closely related to the genus Constantia. During more than a century Isabelia was a genus formed by just one species, however, around 1968, it was merged with genus Neolauchea, also unispecific. In 2001, a third genus was added to it, Sophronitella.
context_section_description: Isabelia are epiphytic or rarely rupicolous species that are just occasionally found but usually grow into large colonies, spread in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil from north Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul, both in the humid slopes of Serra do Mar and in the drier forests of the Brazilian Plateau, from sea level to fifteen hundred meters of altitude. I. virginalis is also found in Paraguay and north of Argentina.
  Isabelia pulchella exists from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande do Sul, where it is more common growing epiphytically along the coastal montane areas. Isabelia is the species exposed to the higher amount of constant humidity.
  Isabelia violacea is the species that can be found farther north, from Bahia State to Rio Grande do Sul, where grows epiphytically and is also common inhabiting the streams, banks, and open jungles of campos rupestres of Minas Gerais and Bahia States at around eleven hundred meters of altitude occasionally as a rupicolous under full sunlight.
  Isabelia virginalis is often found epiphytically in semi-deciduous forest in São Paulo and Paraná from two to five hundred meters of altitude but can reach fifteen hundred in Minas Gerais mountains, not rarely living as a lithophyte at these elevations. It grows both on main stems and mid-height and high branches of trees, where it is exposed to plenty of luminosity, humidity and ventilation.
  Isabelia × pabstii, a natural hybrid of Isabelia pulchella and I. violacea, previously known as Isanitella × pabstii, is known from a collection only, in Paraná State, South of Brazil, growing in the crevices and debris pockets of eroded sandstone outcroppings in Vila Velha, near Ponta Grossa. It has lavender pink flowers with a whiter labellum.
caption: Isabelia violacea is the largest Isabelia species and also the most showy.
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