Brachionidium capillare Luer & Hirtz 1995

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Capillary Brachionidium [refers to the hair-like tails of the sepals and petals]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 1000 to 1350 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing repent terrestrial with a slender, branching rhizome enveloped by 3, close, tubular sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, coriaceous, suborbicular, rounded, notched with an apiculum in the sinus, rounded below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a slender, erect, .4" [1 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, with a thin bract near the middle and another at the base and has infundibular, mucronate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying a non-resupinate flower.

"Recognized by the minute, creeping habit with tiny round leaves and small, although long-tailed, non ciliate, white sepals and petals. The lip is broadly ovate with acute, lateral angles that could be interpreted as small lateral lobes. The margin of the lip is entire and broadly rounded with a long-apiculate apex. Similar to Brachionidium jesupiae but differs in the smaller, rounded and the margin of the lip is entire instead of Bimarginate as in B jesupiae." 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;

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