Gongora gratulabunda

There is only one species (or section if you accept flaveola and similis) in the genus Gongora that has this wonderful serpentine kink near the base of the lip: gratulabunda. The flowers are large for a Gongora and widely spaced. It is instantly recognizable and one of my favorites. G. gratulabunda grows as an epiphyte in wet tropical forests along the Pacific coast of Colombia at 850 to 1600 meters elevation. Rudolf Jenny states in his Monograph of the Genus Gongora that it is one of the rarest of the genus.

After at least three attempts I finally managed to set a capsule on one of our gratulabunda accessions. Most of our gongoras resist pollination by hand, at least when the pollinia are freshly released from the anther. Over and over again they seem to want to spring back out of the stigmatic cavity like a rabbit eared jack-in-the-box. Lately I've been letting Gongora pollinia dry for 30 minutes before placing it in the stigmatic opening with a little more success. Gratulabunda means 'wishing luck' which sums up my hopes for our new gratulabunda seedlings.

Making Sense of Gongora Flowers

I'm completely smitten with this Gongora. It took two long weeks for the fully expanded buds to open, but it was worth the wait. See the how the base of the lip has an exaggerated s-shape? It's a quirky feature unique to Gongora gratulabunda (and a couple of sister species) which makes it instantly recognizable.

What about other gongoras? All gongoras share the same basic construction. The dorsal sepal is in the 6 o'clock position. The lateral sepals are reflexed away from the lip. The lateral petals are attached to the column for most of their length. And the lip is in the 12 o'clock position.

Above is a very basic diagram of a Gongora lip. Like a Stanhopea lip, it can be divided into three parts, the hypochile (hypo= below; cheilos=lip), the mesochile (meso=middle) and the epichile (epi=above). A wicked looking pair of bristles arises from the mesochile. Some species of Gongora have an abbreviated pair of horns projecting from the hypochile, but much smaller than those of Stanhopea. The lip of even the simplest Gongora is intricately constructed, like a tiny ship, and though difficult to photograph, it's definitely worth a closer inspection when you visit the Garden.