Brachionidium valerioi Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930

Photo by S. Manning © and The Swiss Orchid Foundation a thte Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Drawing

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Full shade Cold LATEWinterEARLY Spring

Common Name Valerio's Brachionidium [Juvenal Valerio Costa Rican Orchid enthusiast and co-discoverer of species]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Guate4mala, Nicaragua and Heridia province of Costa Rica in cloudforests at elevations of 2000 to 2400 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, long-repent, occasionally branching rhizome giving rise to erect to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, erect to suberect, coriaceous, elliptic, acute, apiculate, 7 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a slender, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a bract near the middle, .6 to .75" [1.5 to 1.8 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence and an infundibular, acuminate, mucronate, as long as the ovary floral bract that encloses the pedicel.

"It is a weak, long-repent species witha slender rhixome and little, elliptical leaveds. Large, loose mayts may accumulate. The sepals and petals of the small flowers are long-caudate. The very distinctive lip is coarsely fringed with an additional fringed callus lying behind the margin of the lip." Luer 1995

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Luer 1995 drawing fide; Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate 803 Hamer 1983 drawing good; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Manual De Plantas de Costa Rica Volumen III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 as B cf valerioi photo good; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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