Brachionidium tetrapetalum (F.Lehm. & Kraenzl.) Schltr. 1920
Photo by © Francisco Tobar and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer
THROUGH EARLY 
Common Name or Meaning The Four Petaled Brachionidium [refers to the sepals and petals shape, all the same]
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Nariño department of southern Colombia and Carchi and Imbabura provinces of northern Ecuador in mossy cloud forests at elevations around 3200 to 3800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing terrestrial with a slender, erect, branching rhizome enveloped by 3, pale, glabrous, loosely fitting, mucronate sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, apiculate, 7 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter through early summer on a slender, erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with an inflated bract near the middle, .32 to .6" [.8 to 1.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, oblique, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying a bright purple, non-resupinate flower.
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; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing fide
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