This plant used to sporadically appear in shows before 1983, always misidentified, sometimes as C. granulosa, other times as some sort of C. bicolor variety. Nobody really paid attention to the plant and flower characteristics that didn't match correctly with none of these species until a friend of mine, Marcos Campacci, describe it as a new species. He named it after its very thin pseudo bulbs. Its irradiation centre is the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia where a few plants of a natural hybrid with C. elongata has been found (Cattleya x tenuata).
Cattleya tenuis Campacci & Vedovello on Flickr - Photo Sharing!