Cattleya maxima Cattleya maxima Cattleya maxima is a species of orchid in subfamily Epidendroideae found from Venezuela to Peru. Epiphytic herb with club-shaped pseudobulbs, up to 39 cm. or taller with one leaf at the top (total height of pseudobulb and leaf about 61 cm). Leaf oblong or broadly oblong, rounded at apex, light green, up to 35 cm. long and up to 6 cm. wide, thick and fleshy. Inflorescence stem up to 30 cm long, with 3-6 (upland variety) or 12-15 (lowland variety) flowers. Flowers 12–15 cm wide, with lilac or pale rose sepals and petals, except the lip or labellum,
Flowering plant be a common source of speciation in general, especially when it comes to radical adaptations that seem to have required inferior transitional forms. Flowering plants may have evolved in an isolated setting like an island or island chain, where the plants bearing them were able to develop a highly specialized relationship with some specific animal (a wasp, for example). Such a relationship, with a hypothetical wasp carrying pollen from one plant to another much the way fig wasps do today, could result in the development of a high degree of specialization in both the plant(s) and their partners. Note that