Brachionidium cruziae L.O.Williams1962

TYPE Drawing by © L.O.Williams and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning Cruz' Brachionidium [Miss Marcela Cruz Costa Rican Orchid Enthusiast]

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in San Jose, Alajuela and Limon provinces of Costa Rica at elevations around 2300 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing terrestrial with a stout, occasionally branching rhizome enveloped by 3, imbricating, long mucronate, minutely scurfy marginally, minutely lobulated on the basal margin sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2, mucronate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, coriaceous, prominently 7 veined, elliptical, acute, apiculate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a slender, erect, .72 to .84" [1.8 to 2.1 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, with a mucronate bract near the middle and another at the base and has long-mucronate floral bracts.

Similar to Brachionidium valerioi but differs in having the perianth parts half as long.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Brittonia 14: 441. L O Williams 1962 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide;Manual De Plantas de Costa Rica Volumen III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

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