Masdevallia fonsecae Koniger 1994 SUBGENUS Masdevallia SECTION Minutae Rchb.f Ex Woolw. 1896
Photos posted by © Patricia Harding and the The Species Identification Task Force Website
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name Fonseca's Masdevallia [Costa Rican discoverer of species current]
Flower Size .68" [1.7 cm]
Found in Costa Rica and Panama at elevations of 900 to 1000 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing, epiphytic species with furrowed, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, narrowly elliptical, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an ascending to erect, terete, slender, to 1.6" [4 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence carrying a very bad smelling flower.
Similar to and often cited as a synonym of M attenuata but this one differs in having a wider and longer sepaline tube, as well as having purple stripes and a different lip and petals.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Arcula 2: 35. Koniger 1994 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXII Part 3 Luer 2002 as Synopnym of M attenuata; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #9 2016 drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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