Dracula leonum Luer 1979 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photo by © Alphono Doucette and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website
LATE
Common Name The Lyon's Dracula [American Orchid Enthusiasts current]
Flower Size
Found in Peru without locational data as a miniature sized, caespitose epiphyte with narrrow, channeled ramicauls enveloped by 2, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, narrowly obovate-linear, acute, tridenticulate, carinate dorsally along the midrib, gradually narrowling below into the conduplicate base leaf that blooms in the late spring on a more or less horizontal, arising from low on the ramicaul, slender, sparsely bracted, to 4" {10 cm] long, congested, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with as long as the pedicel floral bract.
"Similar to Dracula fuliginosa but differs in the connate seals producing a white cup, shortly pubescent within with multiple purple dots. The concave eichjile of the lip contains three well developed lamellae and the margins are conspicuusly denticulate." Luer 1979
Often cited as a synonym of D erythrochaete but that species has been misidentified for at least 100 years. Here is the original description of Masdevallia erythrochaete the basionym of Dracula erythrochaete which states that it has an erect inflorescence with pure white and light yellow sepals with reddish purple tails. D leonum has a horizontal inflorescence and has flowers that are white with purple spots so this is a distinct species with no affinities to D erythrochaete.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 44: 164 Luer 1979
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