Masdevallia oreas Luer & R. Vásquez 1981 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000
Photos by Eric Hunt, plant grown by the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers.
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Mountain Masdevallia [Oreas A mountain nymph of Mythology]
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in La Paz department of central Bolivia in cloud forests at elevations of 2000 to 2200 meters as a mini-miniature, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute leaf that gradually narrows below into the petiole and blooms in the spring on an erect, arising from low on the ramicaul with a bract near the base, terete, congested, .4" [1 cm] long, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence with tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"The terete peduncle produces a successively few flowered raceme of orange and purple, long-tailed flowers that resembles M bicolor of SECTION Alaticaules with a stout, triquetrous rpeduncle. In SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000 it is closely allied to the short-tailed M menatoi." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia oreas (Luer & R.Vásquez) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0249 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Systematics of Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia oreas; Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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