Pleurothallis alveolata Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Antenniferae Luer 1998
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Photo by © Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Small Cavity Pleurothallis [refers to the lip resembling a bloody socket after a tooth extraction]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Pastaza, Tungurahua, Napo, Morona-Santiago, and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations of 600 to 1800 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped basally by a single, tubular sheaths and another on the lower third and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, acute, slightly acuminate, rounded or broadly cuneate into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the spring on 1 to 2, erect, strict, arising from a slender spathe at the leaf base, subcongested, disitichous, simultaneously several to many flowered, 2.8" to 6.4" [7 to 16 cm] long, racemose inflorescence with oblique, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
Characterized by the slender ramicaul enveloped in the lower third by a loose sheath, an elliptical-ovate leaf which is as long or longer than the 1 to 2 inflorescence carrying greenish, non resupinate flowers. The uppermost synsepal is deeply cucullate, the lip is short and thick and is acutely reflexed below the middle and has a deep cavity above the middle.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 3: 48 Luer 1976 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide;
Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide
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