Cattleya trianae Cattleya trianae Cattleya trianae (Lind. & Rchb. fil), also known as "Flor de Mayo" ("May flower") or "Christmas orchid", is a plant belonging to the Orchidaceae family. It grows as an epiphytic orchid, with succulent leaves, endemic to Colombia where it was nominated as the national flower in November 1936. That year, the National Academy of History of Argentina asked the Latin American countries to participate in an exhibition with the representative flowers of each country. The Colombian government gave the botanist Emilio Robledo the task to designate the most representative flowering plant of the country. The choice of "Cattleya
Cattleya and shape from the rest of the flower and covers in part the flower column forming a tube. There are four polliniums (bag-like organs that contain pollen). The fruit is a capsule with many small seeds. The genus was named in 1824 by John Lindley after horticulturalist William Cattley. Cattley obtained a specimen of then unnamed "Cattleya labiata" from William Swainson who had discovered the new plant in Pernambuco, Brazil, in 1817. The plant successfully bloomed under the care of Cattley and it became the type specimen from which Lindley described "C. labiata". Currently accepted species and subgeneric division within