page_title: Miltonia
section_title: Taxonomic notes
hierarchical_section_title: Miltonia / Taxonomic notes
caption_attribution_description: Miltonia clowesii
context_page_description: Miltonia, abbreviated Milt. in the horticultural trade, is an orchid genus comprising twelve epiphyte species and eight natural hybrids. The miltonias are exclusively inhabitants of Brazil, except for one species whose range extends from Brazil into the northeast of Argentina and the east of Paraguay.
  The genus of Miltonia was established by John Lindley in 1837, when he described its type species, Miltonia spectabilis. Formerly many more species were attributed to Miltonia, however, beginning in 1978, the miltonias from Central America and from cooler areas of northwest South America have been moved to other genera, including Miltoniopsis and Oncidium, and these changes are still in the process of being accepted by the horticultural trade.
  Miltonia species have large and long lasting flowers, often in multifloral inflorescences. This fact, allied to being species that are easy to grow and to identify, make them a favorite of orchid collectors all over the world. Species of this genus are extensively used to produce artificial hybrids.
context_section_description: The first species to be described, among the ones today classified under the genus Miltonia, was originally published by John Lindley, in 1834, as Cyrtochilum flavescens. In this description Lindley notices that the flowers of this species turn orange color when drying and, for some confusion regarding the origin of the species, attributes it to Mexico instead of Brazil. Two years later Lindley described another Miltonia species but, then, under the genus Oncidium, as O. russellianum in homage to Duke of Bedford. When describing this plant, Lindley considered it as a transition species pointing out that it was very different from the average Oncidium because of its purple colors and undivided lip.
  In 1837, Lindley received from Mr. Loddiges and from George Baker two other specimens of a very distinctive new species. Recognizing then this should in fact be a new genus, he proposed the name Miltonia to it as a homage to Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, formerly Viscount Milton, an English orchid enthusiast. Lindley states then that the limits between a number of Oncidiinae genera, Cyrtochilum, Oncidium, Odontoglossum, Brassia and Miltonia, at that time classified as Vandaea, were yet to be perfectly established; although closely related, the differences should possibly be: Oncidium has a column with two ears and labellum distinctively lobed; Miltonia has a column with two ears and an entire labellum partially united to the column base; Odontoglossum and Cyrtochilum have winged columns and entire labelli but the former has it partially united to the column; and Brassia does not have any appendages on the column. Although Lindley described the genus Aspasia (which is the most closely related to Miltonia) in 1833, both by flower and vegetative morphologies, he did not mention it on his Miltonia description.
  Three other Botanists were working with Miltonia species around the time Lindley described this genus. All recognized these plants should be classified under a new genus and, as communications were slower then, all proposed new genera: Knowles and Westcott also received also a plant of M. spectabilis and, just one month after Lindley, proposed for it the genus Macrochilus, calling the species Macrochilus fryanus; the other one was Rafinescque who, in 1838, decided that the Oncidium russellianum already described by Lindley in 1836 should be under another genus and created for it the genus Gynizodon.  Both Macrochilus and Gynizodon are synonyms of Miltonia and no other species has ever been submitted to them.
  As Miltonia species are common plants, comparatively large, with also large flowers of bright colors, that, moreover, are spread mostly over an area of early settlements in Brazil all species but one were already described in 1850; six of them by Lindley, M. regnellii by Reichenbach and M. moreliana by Achille Richard. Despite the early description of M. moreliana in 1848, and two other as M. rosea by Lemaire in 1867, and as M. warneri by George Nicholson in 1886, Arthur Henfrey reduced it to a variety of Miltonia spectabilis in 1851, and as such it was considered until 2002, when Cássio van den Berg reestablished it as a distinct species. The last Miltonia species to be discovered was M. kayasimae, found by an orchid collector not far from the city of São Paulo, in an area around nine hundred meters of altitude nearby the top of Serra do Mar mountains. It was named after their collector by Guido Pabst in 1976. So far very few plants were found, all living at the same area.
  Since the genus Miltonia was established, many species, now classified under a number other genera, were submitted to it. The most noticeable cases were four of the five species of Miltoniopsis, a genus proposed in 1889 but only really accepted in 1976. Despite its somewhat similar flowers, Miltoniopsis are from cooler forests on the Andean slopes closely related to Cyrtochilum and only remotely related to Miltonia. Also five of the six Miltonioides species were occasionally considered as Miltonia until 1983 when Brieger and Lück
caption: Miltonia clowesii
  This species has the same color pattern of M. russelliana, however, with a whiter labellum. On the other hand, M. clowesii flowers pointed segments are larger and wide opened making it look like a spider.
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