Dracula psyche (Luer & Andreetta) Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photos by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Butterfly-Like Dracula
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 2000 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, very narrowly elliptical to linear, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct, subpetiolate, base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a slender, purple, ascending to horizontal, 2.8 to 6" [7 to 15 cm] long, arising from low on the ramicaul, few bracted, congested, successively few flowered inflorescence with a tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"The small, purple striped, bell-shaped flowers are borne by a slender, relatively short peduncles held more or less upright among the slendre leaves. The dark purple tail of the dorsal sepal points forward while the parellel, aproximate tails of the lateral sepals point downward. The cavity of the small, orbicular epipchile of the lip contains a few, more or less parellel lamellae." Luer 1993
Synonyms *Masdevallia psyche Luer & Andreetta 1978
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana Vol 2 pg 197 Luer 1978; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 2 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1989 watercolor/drawing fide; The Illustratred Encyclopedia of Orchids Pridgeon, 1992 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 Drawing fide; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Draculas Del Ecuador Pupulin, Merino and Medina 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010; Orchid Digest Vol 76 #2 2012 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
