Dryadella werneri Luer 2001 TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name Werner's Dryadella [Ecuadorian Original discoverer of species current]

Flower Size .28" [7 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1800 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by a thin, tubular sheath and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, narrowly ovoid, semiterete, subacute, abruptly narrowing below into the base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, short, congested, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising low on the ramicaul, enclosed by a sheath with thin, imbricating, acuminate floral bracts.

"This species is most similar to the Brazilian Dryadella lilliputiana, but distinguished from the latter by shorter tails; a short, thick claw of the lip; and a dentate column. Dryadella werneri is characterized by the small, densely caespitose habit with thick, semiterete to fusiform leaves. The leaves, broadest below the middle, are con-tracted at the base into a very short pedicel and ramicaul. The flowers are produced in a con-gested, successively flowered raceme. The tails of the sepals are thick and about as long as the blade. The margins of the petals are broadly an-gled. The claw of the lip is short and broad. The column bears a pair of retrorse processes near the middle, while the apex is denticulate." Luer 2001

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * SELBYANA Volume 22(2) 103 2001 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol XXVII Luer 2005 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010

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