Brachionidium ballatrix Luer & Hirtz 1995
Photos © Linda and Michael Karlbom
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Ballet Dancer Brachionidium
Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province in southeastern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 1300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing terrestrial with suberect to pendant ramicauls enveloped basally by 3 imbricate, long-mucronate sheaths and carrying a single, erect to suberect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical, acute, apiculate, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, slender, 1" [2.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with a mucronate bract near the middle and another near the base and a long mucronate, langer than the pedicel and most of the ovary floral bract.
"A small, erect species chracterized by broadly ovate, sepals and petals abruptly contracted into slender tails. The sepals are ecilite, the petals are minutely ciliate and the lip is bimarginate. In habit simlar to Brachionidium folsomii but differs in the non-denticulate, bimarginate lip. Also similar to Brachionidium sherringii but differs in the shorter peduncles and broader floral parts with a more deeply concave dorsal sepal." Luer 1995
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005 drawing fide; Orchids of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchids of Tropical America an introduction and guide Meisel 2014 as B cf ballatrix photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014
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