Masdevallia melanoxantha Linden & Rchb. f. 1854 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986
Photo by © Orchi and Wiki Orchids
Photo by © Micheline GUILMIN
Photo courtesy of Dale and Deni Borders
Drawing by Carl Luer
to 
and
Common Name The Dark and Yellow Masdevallia
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in the northeastern cordillera of Boyaca and Norte de Santander departments of Colombia and in Lara and Tachira states of western Venezuela in cloud forests on mossy tree trunks and branches at elevations of 1400 to 2800 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the stout petiole that blooms in the spring and fall on an erect, arising from low on the ramicaul with a basal brac,t congested, successively several flowered, racemose, 14" [35 cm] long, slender, erect, triquetrous inflorescence with thin, imbricating, tubular, longer than the ovary floral bracts holding the flowers well above the leaf.
"Distinguished by the thickly coriaceous leavers far exceeded in length by a slender, triquetrous peduncle that bears a succession of rigidly, fleshy, bilabiate flowers. From a short, sepaline tube, the greenish dosal sepal ends in an erect, narrowly triangular, purple suffused tail, while the dark purple, velvety [microscopically spiculate-verrucose] synsepal ends in a pair of acute, approximate apices. An erect, verrucose pair of fin-like callous folds demarcate the two halves of the thick lip." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia melanoxantha (Linden & Rchb.f.) Luer 2006; Masdevallia asperrima Kraenzl. 1922
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Bonplandia Rchb.f 1854; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 5 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol 16 No1 1983; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 288 Bennett & Christenson 1995; Venezuela; Paraiso de Orquideas Romero 1997 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Systematics of Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo not; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXV Systematics of Masdevallia Part Five Luer 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia melanoxantha; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
