Dracula levii Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Grandiflorae-Parvilabiate Luer 1993
Photo by © Jay Pfahl
Photo by © Ron Parsons.
Photo by © Dale and Deni Borders.
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Levi's Dracula [American Discoverer of species 1900's]
Flower Size 4" [10 cm]
Found in Narino department of Colombia and Carchi province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 2000 to 2600 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout 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 and fall on a stout, suberect to hoirizontal, arising from low on the ramicaul, provided with several bracts, 5 to 10" [12 to 25 cm] long, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence as well as a tubular, short than the pedicel floral bract.
"Vegetatively similar to Dracula gigas but differs in the white to pale green, glabrous, conical flowers with a tuberosity at the apex of each sepal at the base of each tail. The lip is proportionally small and thick without a clear demarcation between the epichile and the hypochile that are nearly the same size." Luer 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana 2(4): 369 Luer 1978 AOS Bulletin Vol 48 No 7 1979 photo fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 6 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1993 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 72 No 4 2008 photo fide; 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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