Galapagos Species Database
The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.
Tropidia polystachya
young palm orchid
Terrestrial leafy plant, 60 cm tall, with slender stems and fibrous roots. It has short branches and fleshy flowers that are green with purplish suffusion (Wiggins and Porter, 1971).
Although the material from the Galápagos Islands clearly shows long isolation – more spreading habit, longer and thinner leaves, occasional axillary inflorescences – the differences are not sufficient for the recognition of a separate species (Wiggins and Porter, 1971)
Domain
Eukaryota
Kingdom
Plantae
Phylum
Magnoliophyta
Class
Liliopsida (= Monocotyledoneae)
Order
Asparagales
Family
Orchidaceae
Genus
Tropidia
Species
polystachya
Taxon category: Accepted
Order changed from Orchidales to Asparagales (updated by: J.Villalba 2022).
Origin: Native
Map of specimen collection localities or observation records for this species in our collections database.
Distribution: The native range of this species is S. Florida to Caribbean, Mexico to Galápagos, Brazil (Mato Grosso) (POWO, 2023).
- Ames, O. Correll, D.S. (1952) Orchids of Guatemala. Fieldiana, Bot. 26(1): i–xiii, 1–395.
- CONABIO (2009) Catálogo taxonómico de especies de México. Cap. nat. México 1.
- Dodson, C.H. Dodson, P.M. (1980) Orchids of Ecuador. Icon. Pl. Trop. 1: 1–100.
- Itow, S. (1997) List of Plant Specimens collected in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Natural Science, 38 (1): 53-144.
- Jørgensen, P.M. León-Yánez, S. (eds.) (1999) Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of Ecuador. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden 75. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, 1181 pp.
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2022) Plants of the world online POWO (2022): Plants of the world online. Published on the Internet; Https://powo.science.kew.org/
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Missouri Botanical Garden (eds.) (2013) The Plant List, Version 1.1. Published on the Internet; http://www.theplantlist.org/ (accessed 1st January).
- Stevens, W.D. Ulloa, C., Pool, A., & Montiel, O.M. (2001) Flora de Nicaragua. Monogr. Syst. Bot. Missouri Bot. Gard. 85: i–xlii, 1–2666.
- Tropicos.org. (2017) Database of Missouri Botanical Garden. Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden. 06 Oct 2017 <http://www.tropicos.org
- Van der Werff, H.H. (s.a.) Pers. obs. and colls. Personal observations and collections.
- Wiggins, I.L. Porter, D.M. (1971) Flora of the Galapagos Islands Standford University Press, Stanford.
You are welcome to download and use the information found in this page, acknowledging its source.
This page should be cited as follows:
"Galapagos Species Database, Tropidia polystachya", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=1028. Accessed 3 April 2026.