Masdevallia anfracta Königer & J.J. Portilla 1995 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986
Photos courtesy of Dale and Deni Borders
Drawing by Carl Luer
to 
Common Name The Bent Masdevallia
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador and Peru at elevations of 800 to 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with slender erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic-oblong, subacute to acute leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base and blooms in the summer on an erect, arising from the base of the ramicaul, congested, successively single flowered, racmose, 2.4" to 3.2" [6 to 8 cm] long, slender, erect, triquetrous inflorescence with imbricating, shorter than the epdicel floral bracts and holding the flower at leaf height.
"Characterized by the peduncle about as long as an elliptical leaf with an obscure petiolate. Similar to M bicolor but differs in the connate sepals making a cylindrical, sepaline tube with the tail of the dorsal sepal more or less recurved. The apices of the synsepal are obtuse, nearly contiguous and contracted into short tails. The petals and lip do not differ significanthly from the others in the M bicolor complex." Luer 2000
SynonymsAlaticaulia anfracta (Königer & J.Portilla) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Systematics of Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Madevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia anfracta; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Alaticaulia anfracta drawing fide;
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