Brachionidium galeatum Luer & Hirtz 1995

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Helmut Brachionidium [refers to the synsepal]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of southern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 1750 to 2150 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial with a suberect to erect rhizome enveloped by 3, loose, scurfy, long-mucronate tubular sheaths subfimbriate on the lower margins and giving rise to slender, suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2, tubular, mucronate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, thickly coriaceous, fleshy, denticulate above the middle, elliptical, subacute, 7 prominent veined, apiculate, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, with a mucronate bract near the middle and another at the base, .52 to .8" [1.3 to 2 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with a smooth, shorter than the ovary floral bract and carrying a non-resupinate flower.

"Similar i Habit to Brachionidium rugosum but B galeatum has a stouter rhizome with scurfy sheaths. The small purple, taless flowers are disitnguished by the cucullate synsepal that is uppermost that is proportionally large and deeply concave. The petals are relatively narrow and acuminate and the lip is transeversely ovate witha pair of submarginal carinae on the front surface." 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 not = B elegans;

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