Dracula ripleyana Luer 1979 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photo by © Gary Meyer
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Ripley's Dracula [American Orchid Enthusiast 1900's]
Flower Size 2" x 6" [5 x 15 cm]
Found in Costa Rica? as a small to medium sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly elliptic, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on a slender, more or less horizontal, arising from low on the ramicaul, 3.2 to 8" [8 to 20 cm] long, loose, successively single flowered inflorescence with a tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"Related to Dracula erythrochaete but the small flower is readily identified by the distinctive purple blotching and suffusion below the middle of the white sepals. In addition the apex of the epichile of the lip is inflated, incurves and obtuse instead of round and minutely verrucose externally." Luer 1993
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana Vol 5:147 Luer 1979; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 3 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1990 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 photo fide;
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