Pleurothallis weddelliana Rchb.f. 1878 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name Weddell's Pleurothallis [English Plant Collector 1800's]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 3300 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with fasciculate, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3, loose, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptic-oblong, obtuse, cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 3, simultaneous, arising through a broad, foliaceous spathe with an annulus adjacent to the abcission layer, 2.8 to 4.4" [7 to 11 cm] long, distichous, densely simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an inflated, as long as the ovary floral bract.
Closely related to P cassidis but separated vegetatively. P weddelliana has much smaller, narrowly elliptical leaves borne by a more slender ramicaul and it carries only 1 to 3 racemes.
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe weddelliana (Rchb.f.) Luer 2005; Humboltia weddelliana (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891; Stelis weddelliana (Rchb.f.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Xenia Orchid. 3: 24 Rchb.f 1878;
Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 668 Kuntze 1891 as Humboltia weddeliana;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Orchids of Bolivia Vasquez & Ibisch Vol 1 2000 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4: 267 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis weddeliana;
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 Crocodeilanthe weddeliana nom inval;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 in Corrigenda;
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