Scuticaria is a genus of orchids comprising 9 species native to Belize, Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Despite there are few species, Scuticaria inhabit varied climates, disperse in a very uneven way through all countries of South America northern to Bolivia, this excluded, and also in areas of Mata Atlântica in Brazilian Southeast.

The species with wider range is Scuticaria steelei which inhabits open clearings at higher elevations of central Amazon, jungles known as matas de terra firme, up to eight hundred meters of altitude.

[2] Another species from Amazon, however, in a much more restricted area, just in Guyana, in places where the altitude is lower and the humidity is higher, is Scuticaria hadwenii var.

[7] Other species occasionally found, although often under living litophytic over rocks and gatherings of fallen leaves in sunny areas of the mountains of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is S.

[8] Scuticaria irwiniana, second and last rupicolous species, exists only on the mountains of Minas Gerais State, found in sunny or shadier places up to two thousand meters of altitude.

[9] Two are the species from Espírito Santo State, S. novaesii and S. kautskyi, both endemic of restricted areas in the dry jungles of the countryside.

[10] The last Scuticaria species is S. itirapinensis, which has been found only a couple of times in the west-central dry woods of São Paulo State, in an area which has been highly deforested, close to Itirapina.

The inflorescences grow from the said steaths and almost always bear just one flower, exceptionally two in one species, and always is much longer than the pseudobulbs, bearing showy yellow, orange, purple or greenish flowers, with petals and sepals plain, stained or striped, usually by light brown but also by diverse combinations and shades of the other mentioned colors.

The later is é semi-cylindrical, slightly arching, erect and thick, without any kind of appendix, ending in an apical anther and elongated in a small foot at the base.

In his description, Hooker affirms that the plant is highly interesting and an excellent addition to the known epiphytic species because it shows cylindrical leaves almost one meter long, different from anything ever found.

Two years earlier, several plants had been sent from Demerara and Lindey reports that he had previously informally classified this species as Maxillaria flabellifera which, under this name, could be found in several orchid collection in England.

[13] In 1843, Lindley published a revision of a group of orchids classified as tribus Maxillaridae, then subordinated to Vandeae, a subfamily of Orchidaceae at the time.

In this revision, he indicates that much work is needed till the limits between each genus within this tribus can be established and states his doubts regarding some of the new genera he was proposing, despite being very sure of other ones.

[14] This name comes from Latin scutica, flagellum, in reference to the long cylindrical leaves that the species of this genus show, similar to the leather whips used to punish.

It is speculated that possibly because it was found in Brazil on the same area in the southeast where most of Bifrenaria were common, or because he believed that two species separated by so long distance belonged to the same genus.

[18] In 1903, Célestin Alfred Cogniaux, when revising all orchids species from Brazil, cites two other varieties of Scuticaria hadwenii which, because just show color differences, can not be accepted as such today.

[4] In 1972, Guido Pabst described Scuticaria kautskyi, found in Espírito Santo State,[21] in southeast Brazil and, during the following year, published two species at once, S. itirapinensis and S.

[17] For identification purposes, the species can be split as follows: Only two species present erect leaves and are the only ones frequently found as lithophytes, Scuticaria irwiniana, easily known recognized because of its flowers without any stains on the internally entirely purple and externally whitish sepals and petals, with white labellum, striped of purple.

[8] It can be separated from S. strictifolia because shows leaves always pending, flowers of more vivid colors and by the interior of the labellum, which ordinarily is more pubescent.

Scuticaria kautskyi usually has more or less uniform orange color on its sepals and petals, with their bases slightly lighter and dotted of greenish-yellow.

[21] The other species from this state, Scuticaria novaesii presents flowers with green-yellow segments, intensely spotted with dark brown and wide and flat labellum terminal lobe, with clearly marked by radial multicolored lines.