Dracula saulii Luer & Sijm 2006 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Saul's Dracula [Peruvian Orchid Enthusaist Current
Flower Size 1.25" [3.2 cm]
Found in Peru without locality as a small sized, warm to cool growing caesptose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly linear, obtuse, narrowing below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a horizontal, arising from low on the ramicaul, 4 to 4.2" [10 to 11 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with a tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"Distinguished by the small size, and narrowly linear, obtuse leaves .4" [1 cm] wide. The peduncle bears a single, cupped flower with obtuse, more or less recurved sepals. Within the sepals are white and covered above the middle by a dense field of spicules. Most unusual is the tail of the dorsal sepal that is twice to three times shorter than the tails of the lateal sepals. The purple petals seem to peek out like a pair of eyes. The lip is small but remarkable for the asymetrically arranged, numerous, fleshy spiculaes of various sizes that fill the hypochile below a similarly asymeterical, spiculate, overhanging margin of the hypochile." Luer 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 72 No 4 2008 photo fide; AOS Bulletin vol 78 No 10 2009 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 77 #1 2013 photo fide; Orchids: Masdevallia and its Segregates Zelenko 2014 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #12 2017 photo fide;
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