Among the dark red Mormodes species living in the Amazon bassin there are Mormodes atropurpureum, paraense, sinuatum and vinaceum. However the colour is mutable and yellow flowers can be found side by side to dark red flowers.
In fact things are much more complicated. Mormodes means 'like a ghost' or 'like a spook'. The name is more than appropriate. It is derived from the Greek mormo=ghost and the Greek 'oides'. Oides or -odes means 'like a' or 'with characteristics of' and is attributive adjective. So it does not have a linguistic gender of its own.
This leads to the ravelling question if Mormodes is female or neuter. As long ago as 1954 there was a proposal to treat botanical names like Aerides or Mormodes as female. Until today we don't have a valid resolution. Thus you can find both forms like paraensis and paraense.
Back to our ghosts. The Greek substantive 'to eidos' not only means 'looks' or 'appearance'. Do ghosts have a certain well known look? Probably not. Sometimes they even change their looks, it is said. 'To eidos' also means the 'making of an appearance'.
The making of appeance of ghosts is basically unpredictable. And so do Mormodes. In undisturbed nature there may be many and a few years later not a single one.
Do ghosts have a gender? Very difficult to answer.
Do Mormodes flowers have a gender? Equally difficult.
Flower dimorphism is known for some Mormodes species for longer than a century. Even on the same spike.
But very little is known about that. We do not know if flower dimorphism in Mormodes goes along with sexual dimorphism. There is a complete lack of published field observations on this topic.
Most likely this contributed substantially to duplicate or synonymous botanical descriptions within this genus.
The linked interview of Delfina de Araujo with Kleber Lacerda is well worth reading.
Orchid News # 13
My depicted plant is an imported seedling grown in birchwood sawdust.
Mormodes paraense & nature of ghosts
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