Dracula bellerophon Luer & R. Escobar 1978 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Grandiflorae-Parvilabiate Luer 1993
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning Bellerophon’s Dracula [In Greek Mythology Pegasus' rider who slew the Chimaera]
Flower Size 2" x 8" [5 cm x 20 cm]
Found in Antioquia and Valle de Cauca departments of Colombia on the central cordillera in cloud forsts at elevations around 1900 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with stout erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying asingle, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly elliptical, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a subdense, purplish, horizontal to descending, arising from low on the ramicaul, provided with sparse bracts, 5" to 8" [12 to 20 cm] long, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence and carrying a tubular, green, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"The distinctive large, long-tailed flower is pale in color but diffusely covered within by a dense, yellowish, shaggy pubescence. The lip, small in proportion to the size of the sepals, is inflexibly attached to the column foot as it is in Dracula chimaera ." Luer 1993
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 13 No 1 1978 Drawing/photo/herbarium sheet fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 2 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1989 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo fide; Orchids of the Department of Valle de Cauca Colombia Vol 4 Kolanowska, Szlachetko 2016
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