Brachionidium portillae Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Full shade Fall

Common Name or Meaning Portilla's Brachionidium [Orchid Nursureyman in Ecuador current]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of southern Ecuador at unknown elevations as a mini-miniature sized, repent epiphtye with a stout, erect rhizome enveloped by 2 to 3, loose, imbricating, mucronate sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, 5 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, erect, .6 to 1.6" [1.5 to 3.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a bract near the middle and another at the base as well as a inflated, mucronate, longer than the ovary floral bract and carrying a yellow, non-resupinate flower.

Differs from others by its small erect, stout habit, a long-pedicilate, yellow flower with eciliate, short-tailed sepals and petals as well as a thickly cordate, narrowly bimarginate lip." Luer 1995

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 1994 Dodson drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as B portillae no nom illegal= B pepe-portillae; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005 drawing fide;

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