Masdevallia dunstervillei Luer 1982 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning Dunsterville's Masdevallia [American Orchid Collector in Venezuela later 1900's]
Flower Size 1" [2.5cm]
Found in Tachira state of Venezuela in cloud forests at elevations around 2000 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender erect, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the channeled petiolate base leaf that blooms on a slender, arising from low on the ramicaul, with a bract at the base, erect to suberect, triquetrous, congested, 5" [12.5 cm] long, simultaneously 2 flowered, racemose inflorescence with tubular, imbricating, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Most similar to M sancta-fidei but differs in the longer peduncle and longer tails of the simultanelous two flowered inflorescence as in M bicolor . The lateral sepals are connate into broadly ovate lamina with the tails somewhat longer and nearly approximate. Most unusual is the lip with the smooth, conves epoichile rounded on the end with an acutely revolute apiculum." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia dunstervillei (Luer) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Selbyana 7: 106 Luer 1982 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing good; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIX Masdevallia Part one Luer 2000 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia dunstervillei; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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