Brachionidium ciliolatum Garay 1969Drawing by © Garay and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Ciliate Brachionidium [refers to the floral parts]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found on Pico del Oeste Puerto Rico at elevations around 1020 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with a stout, occasionally branching rhizome enveloped by 2 to 3, imbricating, mucronate sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2, mucronate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, apiculate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a slender, erect, .8 to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, with a thin bract near the middle and another at the base and has acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying a cleistogamus flower

"Clsoely resembles Brachionidium parvum both in size and general appearance. It differs however in the shape of the floral segments which are not caudate. Both Brachionidium tetrapetalum and Brachionidium simplex have dissimilar and eciliate lips." Garay 1969

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * J. Arnold Arbor. 50: 464. Garay 1969 Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014

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