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.
Distribution and habit Despite there are few species, Scuticaria inhabit varied climates, disperse in a very uneven way through all countries of South America northern to Bolivia, this excluded, and also in areas of Mata Atlântica in Brazilian Southeast. No species is common in nature, being just occasionally or even rarely found.
The species with wider range is Scuticaria steelei which inhabits open clearings at higher elevations of central Amazon, jungles known as matas de terra firme, up to eight hundred meters of altitude.Miranda, Francisco: Orquídeas da Amazônia Brasileira, pp. 43. Ed. Expressão e Cultura, 1996. Although this species occupies wide area, it is not found very often.Freitas Luz, Francisco J.: Orquídeas na Amazônia, p. 59. Instituto Brasileiro de Cultura, Ed. On Line, 2001. Another species from Amazon, however, in a much more restricted area, just in Guyana, in places where the altitude is lower and the humidity is higher, is Scuticaria hadwenii var. dogsonii.Reichenbach, Heinrich Gustav: Scuticaria dogsonii in Gardeners' Chronicle vol.15: p. 9. London, 1881.
Endemic in another area of Amazon, separated but not that far from the habitat of Scuticaria steelei, on southeastern Ecuador, close to the place where the Andes starts, in humid and slightly colder forests, on the mountains up to 1,300 meters of altitude, it is found Scuticaria salesiana.Dressler, Robert Louis: Scuticaria salesiana in Orquideologia vol.3(2): p. 3. Revista de la Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideologia. Medellin, 1968. Under the same conditions but in wider areas, that encompass the southeast of Ecuador and northeast of Peru, lives S. peruviana.Bennett, David E. & Christenson, Eric: Scuticaria peruviana in Orchid Digest 66: pp.64. Berkeley, California, 2002. All species from Amazon are always epiphytic.
The remaining species inhabit the area occupied by Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The only species that can be found widespread through several states is Scuticaria hadwenii, in the humid jungles of Serra do Mar from Santa Catarina to Bahia States,Toscano de Brito, Antônio & Cribb, Phillip: Orquídeas da Chapada Diamantina, pp. 284. Ed. Nova Fronteira, 2005. generally found living epiphytic at middle height over thick tree stems.Miller, David; Richard Warren; Izabel Moura Miller & Helmut Seehawer: Serra dos Órgãos sua história e suas orquídeas, pp. 294. Rio de Janeiro, 2006. Other species occasionally found, although often under living lithophytic over rocks and gatherings of fallen leaves in sunny areas of the mountains of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is S. strictifolia.Hoehne, Frederico Carlos: Scuticaria in Flora Brasilica, vol. 12-7 p. 342. Instituto de Botânica de São Paulo, 1953.
Scuticaria irwiniana, second and last rupicolous species, exists only on the mountains of Minas Gerais State, found in sunny or shadier places up to two thousand meters of altitude.Guido Pabst & Fritz Dungs: Orchidaceae Brasilienses vol. 2 pp. 187, Brucke-Verlag Kurt Schmersow, Hildesheim, 1977. Two are the species from Espírito Santo State, S. novaesii and S. kautskyi, both endemic of restricted areas in the dry jungles of the countryside.Barros, Fábio & Catharino, Eduardo L.M.: Scuticaria novaesii, nova espécie de Orchidaceae do Brasil. Hoehnea vol. 9: pp. 52–62, São Paulo, 1982. The last Scuticaria species is S. itirapinensis, which has been found only a couple of times in the west-central dry woods of São Paulo State, in an area which has been highly deforested, close to Itirapina. There are no records or reports on this species, both in nature and under culture, during the last twenty-five years. It is speculated about the possibility of its extinction.Records of species displayed during orchid shows. Archives of Coordenadoria das Associações Orquidófilas do Brasil - CAOB. Accessed October 2008.
Description
The species subordinated to genus Scuticaria are characterized by being plants of thick cylindrical roots covered by thick vellamen. Their stem is formed by an ordinarily short rhizome, slightly elongated in some species; and by cylindrical almost inconspicuous pseudobulbs of the same diameter or slightly thicker than the unique leaf born on their apexes, because they generally are covered by small dried scaling steaths. The leaves may be erect or pending up to one meter long. The inflorescences grow from the said steaths and almost always bear just one flower, exceptionally two in one species, and always is much longer than the pseudobulbs, bearing showy yellow, orange, purple or greenish flowers, with petals and sepals plain, stained or striped, usually by light brown but also by diverse combinations and shades of the other mentioned colors. Ordinarily the labellum presents contrasting colors, frequently with white areas.
The flowers are large, wide open, and last during about two weeks. They have sepals of similar sizes and form an almost invisible chin with the column foot. The petals may be similar to the sepals but smaller, or much smaller and with a much narrower base, occasionally showing different patterns or colors. The labellum articulates with the column, is trilobed, with comparatively small lateral lobes and larger terminal, which has variable shapes with diverse patterns and a callus under to column. The later is é semi-cylindrical, slightly arching, erect and thick, without any kind of appendix, ending in an apical anther and elongated in a small foot at the base. The flowers bear to pairs of pollinia of different sizes. The caudicle is narrow and the retinacle is small. The fruits resemble the ones of Maxillaria. There are no observation records of pollinators activities but Scuticaria are supposedly pollinated by Euglossini bees.
Taxonomic notes
In May 1837, the English Botanist William Jackson Hooker received a drawing and a dried sample of a plant, sent by an orchid grower from Liverpool, together with a note explaining that the plant arrived from Demerara, in Guyana, in July of the preceding year. Hooker described this species, classifying it under the genus Maxillaria, calling it M. steelei, in homage to its discoverer. In his description, Hooker affirms that the plant is highly interesting and an excellent addition to the known epiphytic species because it shows cylindrical leaves almost one meter long, different from anything ever found.Hooker, William Jackson: Scuticaria in The Botanical magazine 64: t. 3573. Ed. William Curtis, London, 1837. Published on Internet. A few months later, John Lindley published again the species Hooker described, however, adding more information. Two years earlier, several plants had been sent from Demerara and Lindey reports that he had previously informally classified this species as Maxillaria flabellifera which, under this name, could be found in several orchid collection in England. Because he had not yet described this species, he accepts the priority of the name chosen by Hooker. Lindley adds, however, that he had some doubts about the classification, of a species so different from any other known so far, under the genus Maxillaria.Lindley, John: Scuticaria steelei in Edward's Botanical Register Vol.2, t.1986. James Ridgway & Sons Ed. London, 1837. Published on Internet.
In 1843, Lindley published a revision of a group of orchids classified as tribus Maxillaridae, then subordinated to Vandeae, a subfamily of Orchidaceae at the time. In this revision, he indicates that much work is needed till the limits between each genus within this tribus can be established and states his doubts regarding some of the new genera he was proposing, despite being very sure of other ones. Lindley suggested the division of Maxillaridae in twenty-five genera, being Scuticaria one of the genera he considered well established. When describing this new genus, Lindley based on morphologic characteristics of Maxillaria steelei Hook., selected as the Type species of Scuticaria with the name Scuticaria steelei.Lindley, John: Scuticaria in Edward's Botanical Register Vol. 29 (miscelanea), p. 14. James Ridgway & Sons Ed. London, 1843. Published on Internet. This name comes from Latin scutica, flagellum, in reference to the long cylindrical leaves that the species of this genus show, similar to the leather whips used to punish.
Strangely, because he published the genus Scuticaria many years earlier, in 1851, Lindley described another species now considered part of this genus, classifying it under Bifrenaria. It is speculated that possibly because it was found in Brazil on the same area in the southeast where most of Bifrenaria were common, or because he believed that two species separated by so long distance belonged to the same genus. It was Scuticaria hadwenii.Lindley, John: Bifrenaria hadwenii in Paxton's Flower Garden. John Paxton Ed., London, 1851. Few months later, Jules Émile Planchon corrected Lindley moving it to the genus where it is subordinated today.Planchon, Jules Émile: Scuticaria hadwenii in Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe vol.7: p. 239. Ghent, 1852. In 1851, the only two common Scuticaria species were described and the genus well established, therefore no later confusion about the classification of any species subordinated to this genus ever happened.R. Govaerts, M.A. Campacci (Brazil, 2005), D. Holland Baptista (Brazil, 2005), P.Cribb (K, 2003), Alex George (K, 2003), K.Kreuz (2004, Europe), J.Wood (K, 2003, Europe) (Novembro 2008). World Checklist of Orchidaceae. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on Internet. (Accessed March 2009).
Almost one century passed before any important new information were published. In 1881 Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach described Scuticaria dogsonii, originated from Guyana, but in 1892, Berthold Stein, considering that the only difference it shows from Scuticaria hadwenii is the fact it bears two flowers each inflorescence, reduced it to a variety of the later.Stein, Berthold: Scuticaria hadwenii var. dogsonii in Orchideenbuch, 1892. In 1903, Célestin Alfred Cogniaux, when revising all orchids species from Brazil, cites two other varieties of Scuticaria hadwenii which, because just show color differences, can not be accepted as such today.Cogniaux, Célestin Alfred: Scuticaria in Flora Brasiliensis Vol.3 Part.6: pp. 78–81. K.F.P. von Martius Ed., 1903. Published on Internet. Finally, in 1947, Frederico Carlos Hoehne described a new species, Scuticaria strictifolia, yet similar to Scuticaria hadwenii, although showing some slight differences on the labellum structure, besides their normally lithophytic habit and erect leaves.Hoehne, Frederico Carlos: Scuticaria strictifolia in Arquivos de Botânica do Estado de Sao Paulo, n.s, f.n.2, p. 88. Instituto de Botânica de São Paulo, 1947.