Brachionidium demissum Luer & C.Soto 2012

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE

Common Name or Meaning The Drooping Brachionidium [refers to the tails of the tepals]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Cusco department of Peru near Machu Picchu in sphagnum moss at elevations of 3000 to 3200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing terrestrial with ascending ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, inflated, acuminate sheaths and carrying a single, more or less erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, shortly apiculate, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall on an erect to descending, stout, peduncle .08 to .2" [2 to 5 mm] long, single flowered inflorecence with an inflated, acute, acuminate, much longer than the ovary floral bract and carrying a non-resupinate, purple red flower.

"Brachionidium demissum, apparently from the region of Machu Picchu, is distinct with long, drooping, filamentous tails of the sepals and petals. The habit is small and repent with broadly elliptical, apiculate leaves; short ramicauls; short peduncles and much shorter pedicels that are hidden with the ovary by an inflated floral bract. The uppermost synsepal arches forward with the long, connate, filamentous, twin tips hanging between the similarly dangling, filamentous tails of the petals. The lip is thickly triangular with an uncinate apiculum." Luer & Sijm 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 2012 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer and Lisa Thoerle drawing fide

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