Dracula alcithoe Luer & R. Escobar 1981 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Dracula
Photo by © Franco Pupulin and The Epidendra Orchid Website
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Alcithoe's Dracula [A woman in greek mythology that was turned into a bat]
Flower Size 10" tall x 2" wide [25 x 5 cm]
Found in Putomayo department of Colombia and Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations of 1900 to 2500 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, very narrowly obovate to linear, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a stout, horizontal to descending, arising from low on the ramicaul, lax, 6.4" to 8" [16 to 20 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence with tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Vegetatively the plant is simiar to many others with long, narrow leaves and descending peduncles. he large, widely expanded, long-tailed flowers are distinctive with the well-demarcated pale zone in the center, surrounded by difusely spotted, long-pubescent seplas. The pattern is reminiscent of Dracula simia but distinguished by the suborbicular, concave with involute margins and filled with low, branching lamellar that terminate in numerous, marginal teeth a pattern similar to Dracula wallisii and its numerous relatives." Luer 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 15 #1 Luer & Escobar 1981 drawing fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 3 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1990 watercolor/drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 1 COS 1990 photo fide to the second photo; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Australian Orchid Review Vol 69 No 5 2004 photo; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007 photo fide to the second photo; Draculas Del Ecuador Pupulin, Merino and Medina 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo fide;
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