Dryadella cuspidata Luer & Hirtz 1999

Photo by © Wiel Driessen and his Flickr Orchid Photo WebPage

TYPE Drawing

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and the The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Deep Shade Warm Summer Fall

Common Name or Meaning The Cuspidate Dryadella [refers to the pair of triangular, toothlike processes of the column]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Putumayo department of Colombia and Morona-Santiago, Napo and Zmora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations of 600 to 950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly linear-elliptical, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a, erect to .04 to .08" [1 to 2 mm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with thin, imbricating, much longer than the ovaryu floral bracts and holding the flowers beneath the leaves.

"Superfiscially resembling D simula but differs in the grested ovaries with the crests extending onto the carinae of the lateral, more caudate sepals, petals with an obliquely truncate lobe on the laower margin of the apex and the column has a pair of prominent, acute, dscending, tooth-like lobes." Luer 1999

CAUTION !! The photo above agrees with the description in all points other than the cuspidate column which in the photo is not apparent so please use with caution

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidiarum Vol XXVII Luer 2005 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo fide;

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