Dracula cochliops Luer & R. Escobar 1979 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Cochliopsia Photo by © Eric Hunt Photo by © Jay Pfahl. TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer .
Common Name The Snail Eyed Dracula [refers to the sepals protruding and resembling the eyes on stalks of snails]
Flower Size 1.6" x 2.4" [4 cm x 6 cm]
Found in Putumayo department of Colombia on the eastern slopes of the Andes in remnants of cloud forest at elevations around 2200 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, short, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly elliptical, acute, gradually narrowing below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on a slender, 3.2 " to 4.4" [8 to 11 cm] long, lax, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and carrying tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"D cochliops has no close relatives. It is distinguished by the small, colorful, verrucose, gaping flower borne by an erect peduncle about the same length as the leaves, protruding, elongate, clavate petals, and a small lip indistinctly divided into an epipchile and a hypochile. The usual splitting of the apex of the petals into a pair of valves interposed with papillae is obscure. The cleavage is fainly visible along the isthmus at the mid-portion suggesting that bloth valves extend onto the bulbous, apical portion." Luer 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Oqruideologia Vol 13 N0 2 1979 photo/drawing/herbarium sheet fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 4 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1991 watercolor/drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 1 COS 1990 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Australian Orchid Review Vol 65 No 6 2000 photo; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 72 No 4 2008 photo fide; Orquideologia Vol 28 #1 2011 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------