Masdevallia isos Luer 1979 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

LATE EARLIER

Common Name or Meaning The Similar Masdevallia [an allusion to the similarity of this species to many others in the section]

Flower Size .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm]

Found in La Paz and Santa Cruz departments of Bolivia at elevations of 1000 to 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical to obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the indistinct, channeled petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and earlier spring on an erect to suberect, stout, triquetrous, 1.6 to 2.8" [4 to 7 cm] long, congested, simultaneously one to 2 flowered inflorescence subtended by a bract, arising from the base of the ramicaul with tubular, imbricating floral bracts and holding the flower more or less at the height of the leaf.

"Similar to the M bicolor complex but differs in the shorter tails of the lateral sepals, petals with a conical callus at the base and a lip with a round microscopically papillose epipchile that is slightly wider than the hypochile" Carl Luer 2000

Synonyms Alaticaulia isos (Luer) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia isos;

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