Dracula pusilla (Rolfe) Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photo by © Moises Behar and the Project Orchidstudium Website
Photo by © Karel Kratochvil and the Dracula Website
Photo by © Eerika Schlz and her Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Small Flowered Dracula
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia? in cloud forests growing in thick mossy and leafy debris on the trunks of tall trees in dim forests, as well as on low, thin branches of short trees in wet, elfin forests at elevations of 1100 to 1800 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly elliptical, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, descending, arising from low on the ramicaul, 2 to 7" [5 to 17.5 cm] long, loose, successively single, few flowered racemose inflorescence with a tubular, 1/3rd the size of the pedicel floral bract.
CAUTION All photos of D pusilla that I have come across from Central America have strong internal pubescence, Luer's D vagabunda from Colombia has a different attitude of opening and very sparse short internal pubescence, could they be different species, more research needs to be done.
Synonyms Masdevallia johannis Schltr. 1912; *Masdevallia pusilla Rolfe 1893; Dracula vagabunda Luer & R.Escobar 1981
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew. 1893(82,83): 335. Rolf 1893 as Masdevallia pusilla; Orquideologia Vol 15 #1 Luer & Escobar 1981 as D vagabunda photo/drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 663 Hamer 1982 drawing fide; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Orquídea (Méx.) 12(2): 277-280. 1992 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 7 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1994 watercolor/drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 5-6 Plate 549 Hagsater & Soto 2002 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014; Orchids: Masdevallia with its Segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Lankesteriana 19(1). 31 - 55 2019 photo fide
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
