Brachionidium phalangiferum Garay 1956
Photos by © Sebastian Vieira
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATER
Common Name or Meaning The In A Tight Row Brachionidium [refers to the ramicauls]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Norte de Santander Department of northeastern Colombia and Merida state of northwestern Venezuela in cloud forests on mossy trees at elevations of 2400 to 2600 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a relatively stout rhizome giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 imbricate, shortly mucronate sheaths and carrying an erect, coriaceous, elliptic, subacute to obtuse, apiculate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and later spring on an erect, slender, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, with a loose bract below the middle and another at the base, .6 to .8 [1.5 to 2 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence and has an inflated, mucronate, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying a non-resupinate flower.
"The erect, elliptiocal leaves are produced at intervals of .6 to .8" [1.5 to 2 cm], along the rhizome. The bright purple long-tailed sepals and petals are minutely ciliate. The margin of the transverse lip is deeply cleft longitudunally into 2 margins, the upper most overhanging and obscuring the lower margin." LUer 1995
Synonyms Brachionidium portillae Luer 1986
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 2 Foldats 1970; Icones Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Arnaldoa 12: 56. Beccara 2005 ; AOS Bulletin Vol 76 No 12 2007; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo ok
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