Masdevallia chaucana Luer & Hirtz 2005 SUBGENUS Pygmaeia SECTION Amaluzae SUBSECTION Amaluzae Luer 1986
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
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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