Brachionidium polypodium Luer 1995
Photos by © M Blanco, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Many Footed Brachionidium [refers to the Polypodium fern that this species resembles]
Flower Size 3/8" [.9 cm]
Found in Heridia province of Costa Rica and Chiriqui and Bocas del Toros provinces of Panama in dense moss at elevations of 1200 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with a long-repent, comparatively stout, occasionally branched rhizome giving rise to a suberect, short ramicaul enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, broadly elliptical, subacute to obtuse, apiculate, 7 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a erect, filiform, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a bract below the middle, .6" [1.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence and an infundibular, mucronate, longer than the ovary floral bract carrying a single non-resupinate flower.
"Distinguished by the long repent,very small habit, a relatively stout, creeping rhizome that produces eveny spaced, short ramcauls with a little, elliptical leaf. The flwoers are small with minutely ciliate sepals and petals that area slender-caudate. The lip is transverse witha broadly rounded, entiire margin." Luer 1995
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Manual De Plantas de Costa Rica Volumen III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
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