Masdevallia frilehmannii Luer & R.Vásquez 2001 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name Frilehmann's Masdevallia [Friedrich Lehmann, German Orchid Enthusiast in Bolivia]

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 750 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicuals enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a straight, erect, triquetrous, congested, 6.4" [16 cm] long, successively single flowered inflorecence with a tubular bract at the base, arising from the base of the ramicaul and has imbricating floral bracts.

This orchid is unique because the flower has the sepals deeply connate into an inflated, ovoid tube with a constricted aperature, similar to M encephala of the subgenus Masdevallia but this one has the triquetrous inflorescence of the subgenus Polyantha but not the inflated sepaline tube which the others have.

Synonyms Alaticaulia frilehmannii (Luer & R.Vásquez) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXII Part 3 Luer 2001 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia frilehmannii;

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