Masdevallia eumeces Luer 1989 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Good Length Masdevallia [refers to the tails of the sepals]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm] wide

Found in Peru without locational data as a mini-miniature sized caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, stout peduncle, .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long, with a bract above the base, from the base of the ramicaul, rachis very short, congested, successively? single, few? flowered inflorescence with tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract and carrying flowers with fleshy, light yellow green, lightly flecked with brown, minutely short pubescent within sepals, the petals white and a light brown lip.

"The species is characterized by the narrow, thickly coriaceous leaves. The flower is borne by a slender, terete peduncle less than half as long as the leaf, whether or not there is a second flower is unknown. The fleshy greenish sepals are connate into a short broad tube beyond which they are gradually narrowing into the long slender tails. The petals are oblong, the the longitudinal callus swollen at the base and the apex is acute. The subverrucose epichile is broader than the hypochile. This species exhibits an exceptional combination of features that place it between Masdevallia section Coriaceae and Subgenus Polyantha Subsection Successiveiflora. Were it not for the probability that is has a successive flower and the marginal folds of the lip which is distinctive for the Subgenus Polyantha it would be classified within the Section Coriaceae." Luer 2000

Synonyms Alaticaulia eumeces (Luer) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleuorothallidinarum XIX Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXV Systematics of Masdevallia Part Five Luer 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alatacaulia eumeces

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