Brachionidium pteroglossum Luer 1984

TYPE Drawing by © Luer and The Epidendra Website

Common Name or Meaning The Winged Tongue Brachionidium

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Morona-Santiago and Pastaza provinces of Ecuador in moss in cloud forests at elevations of 2400 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphtye with an erect, occasionally branching rhizome enveloped by 3, imbricating, abruptly mucronate sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, apiculate, 5 to 7 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a loose, bract below the middle and another at the base, .48 to .88" [1.2 to 2.2 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence as well as a infundibular, mucronate, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying a pale green, purple striped, non-resupinate flower.

"This small species with a stout ramicaul is notable for the transluscent green, purple veined flowers with long-acuminate sepals and petals and a lip with acute, lateral lobes expanded forward." Luer 1984

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 55: 176. Luer & Vasquez 1984; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 1994 Dodson drawing fide; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005;

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