Masdevallia cupularis Rchb. f. 1866 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by Eric Hunt and plant grown by the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers
Photos by © Bogarin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE
EARLY 
Common Name The Little Cup Masdevallia [refers to the sepaline tube]
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Heredia, Alajuela and Cartago provinces of Costa Rica at elevations of 1700 to 2200 meters as a minii-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 thin, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic-obovate, subacute to obtuse leaf that gradually narrows below into a petiole that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a horizontal to suberect, arising from low on the ramicaul, slender, 3.6" to 5.6" [9 to 14 cm] long, single flowered, occasionally followed by a second, inflorescence with a tubular, as long as the pedicel floral bract and holding the flower below the leaf.
"Characterized by the relatively small habit and a more or less horizontal peduncle that occasionally produces a second flower. The sepaline tube is broad, diffusely marked with purple brown and with slender tails about as long as the blades. The petals are callous without a process. The lip is divided by marginal folds into a fimbriate epichile and an oblong hypochile." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia cupularis (Rchb. f.) Luer 2006; Masdevallia odontochila Schlechter 1910; Masdevallia reflexa Schlechter 1923; Reichantha cupularis (Rchb.f.) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; * Beitr. Orchid.-K. C. Amer. 93. Rchb.f 1866; Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 276. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as M reflexa; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1547 Atwood 1993 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Systematics of Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXV Systematics of Masdevallia Part Five Luer 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Reichantha cupularis; < Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 as Alaticaulia cupularis; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
