Pleurothallis gratiosa Rchb. f. 1854 SUBGENUS Ancipitia SECTION Ancipitia Luer 1986
Photo by © Pieter C. Brouwer and his Nature Photo Website
Photo by Eric Hunt, plant grown by Dan Newman of Hanging Gardens.
Photo by Walter Teague
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Attractive Pleurothallis [refers to the flowers being "full of Pleasure"]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Araguas state of Venezuela at elevations around 1500 to 1635 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, elliptical leaf that blooms on a thin, 2" [5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with the flower held above the leaf. It has slender, erect, ramicauls that are sharply ancipitous towards the middle, a bract below the middle and 2 to 3 basal sheaths carrying a single, apical, rigid, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, obtuse, cordate, sessile leaf with a rounded base that blooms at most any time of the year on erect-ascending, arising from a reclining spathe at the base of the leaf, filiform peduncle, 1 to 1.2" [2.5 to 3 cm] long, in a fascile of successively single flowered inflorescence with a tubular, much shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"The sepals vary from white to light rose with purplish spots. The narrow, pointed petals are more or less falcate. The tiny pubescent lip is similar to Pleurothallis crocodiliceps Rchb. f. 1855, but the oblique, inflexed lateral lobes are broad with the unicinate apices protruding from the base of lip." Luer 1989
Synonyms Ancipitia gratiosa (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004; Humboldtia gratiosa (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Bonplandia (Hannover) 2: 25 Rchb.f 1854;
Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 667 Kuntze 1891 as Humboltia gratiosa;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 30 No 5 1961;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VI Systematics of Pleurothallis subgen Ancipita, Scopula and Trisetella Luer 1989 drawing fide;
Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Ancipitia gratiosa
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