Masdevallia chaucana Luer & Hirtz 2005 SUBGENUS Pygmaeia SECTION Amaluzae SUBSECTION Amaluzae Luer 1986

Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website

TYPE Drawing

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Deep Shade CoolColdSpring

Common Name or Meaning The Chauca Masdevallia [A town in Eastern Ecuador]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm] wide

Found in Azuay province of southwestern Ecuador on the western slopes of the foothills of the Andes at elevations around 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caepsitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the elongate petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a slender, arising from low on the ramicaul with a bract at the base and another in the lower quarter, suberect to horizontal, 1.6 to 2.4" [4 to 6 cm] long, successively few flowered inflorescence with a tubular, as long as the pedicel floral bract

"Most closely allied to M merinoi but differs mostly in the appearance of the flowers. The flowers are heavily suffused amd marked with purple and the sepals do not spread, giving the flowers a tubular appearance. The free portion of the lateral sepals are shorter and broader than those of M merinoi that are connate much farther beyond the sepaline tube. The lip od M chaucana is obovate with large, erect, rounded margins at the base while the lip of M merinoi is oblong with low basal margins." Luer 2005

Synonyms Luzama chaucana (Luer & Hirtz) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Systematics of Dryadella Systematics of Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Luzama chaucana ; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Luzama chaucana drawing ok

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