Brachionidium kuhniarum Dressler 1982
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by Kerry/Robert Dressler
Photo courtesy of Ecuagenera
Common Name Kuhn's Brachionidium [American Couple - Orchid Enthusiasts and discoverer of species current]
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Cocle province of Panama and Napo province of Ecuador at elevations of 800 to 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with a sometimes branching stem carrying suberect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 similar, imbricate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, apiculate, gradually narrowing below into the cuneate, short, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a bract near the base and another in the middle, .2 to 1/2" [7 to 17 mm] long, single flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, mucronate, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying a non-resupinate flower.
"Disitnguished by the short, erect, leafy rhizome and a long-tailed, yellow flower with a cucullate synsepal. The sepals and petals are minutely ciliate. Most unusual are the 8 pollina with one pair on each side united at the rounded ends. The remaining pair on each side consists of a large and a small pollinium." Luer 1995
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 15 #2-3 1982 drawing/photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005; Genera Orchidacearum Vol 4 Epidendroideae Part 1 Pridgeon, Cribb, Chase and Rasmussen 2005 photo fide; A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species Parsons & Gerritsen 2013 photos fide
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