Masdevallia mallii Luer 2000 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000 >
TYPE Photo by Rao/TYPE/Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
LATER
Common Name Malli's Masdevallia [Malli Rao American Orchid Enthusaist]
Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 1100 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicuals enveloped by fugaceous, tubular sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, ellitpical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer on a stout, arising from the base of the ramicaul, with a tubular bract at the base, congested, 6" [15 cm] long including the 4.8" [12 cm] long peduncle, successively single flowered inflorescence with thin, imbricating, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Vegetatively the species is remarkable for the thickly rigid, obtuse, elliptical leaf that contracts below into a stout, subpetiolate base. The triquetrous peduncle bears a congested, successively flowered, long pedicellate raceme. The more or less conical flowers are relatively large and white with purple suffusion on the inner half of the lateral sepals. The tail of the dorsal sepal points downward. Although connate to the dorsal sepal for more than half its length, the crescent-shaped lateral sepals are free from each other to the base beneath the column foot. The petals are oblong. The epichile of the lip is acutely reflexed above marginal folds." Luer 2000
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXI Masdevallia Part 2 Luer 2000 drawing fide;
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