Masdevallia helenae Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Masdevallia SECTION Masdevallia SUBSECTION Masdevallia
Photo courtesy of Lisa Thoerle
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
LATE 
Common Name Helen's Masdevallia [Helen Kuhn, American First Collector of Species late 1900's]
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in central Bolivia in cloud forests at elevations around 1100 to 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect, blackish ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, loose tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute to obtuse leaf that gradually narrows below into a subpetiolate base and blooms in the late winter and spring on an erect to suberect, slender, 1 3/5 to 1 3/4" [4 to 4.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and having a bract below the middle and a tubular floral bract.
Similar to M attenuata but M helenae is single flowered and M attenuata [from Central America] is successively flowered.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXII Systematics of Masdevallia Part 3 Luer 2001 drawing fide; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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