Masdevallia menatoi Luer & R. Vásquez 1980 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Polyanthae SUBSECTION Successiviflorae Luer 2000
Photo by © John Varigos
Side view of Flowers and plant
Photo by © The Ecuagenera Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning Menato's Masdevallia [Bolivian Discoverer of Species current]
Flower Size 2/5" [1 cm]
Found in La Paz department of Bolivia in cloud forests at elevations around 1800 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical to obovate, subacute to obtuse leaf that gradually narrows into the petiole below and blooms at any time of the year on an erect to suberect, arising from low on the ramicaul with a bract at the base, congested, racemose, few to several [2 to 6] flowered, terete, purple flecked, 32" to 4" [8 to 10 cm] long inflorescence oblique, shorter than the pedicel, floral bract and a purple flecked pedicel.
" Superficially similar to M bicolor but M menatoi flower frequently throughout the year and most distinctly the eret, terte, purple peckled peduncle produces a similar, successively flowered raceme of small, yellow o purplich to brownish flowers. The sepals are flesh and connate into a cylindrical tube. The tail of the dorsal sepal ascends or stands erect. THe lateal sepals are connate to above the middle with the rounded apices abruptly contracted into much shorter tails. The petals are oblong, longitudinally callous on the lower half and the apex is irregularily dentate. The lip is divided into an epichile and a hypochile by narginal folds that vary from broad and extending beyond the margins to shart and erect within the margins. M cosmia has shorter peduncels with the flowers produced slowly in M cosmia and rapidly in M menatoi." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia menatoi (Luer & R.Vásquez) Luer 2006; Masdevallia foeda Luer & Vasq. 1988
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Phytologia 46: 351 Luer 1980; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0248 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing fide;
Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 288 Bennett & Christenson 1995;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIX Systematics of Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing fide;
Orchids of Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXV Systematics of Masdevallia Part Five Luer 2003;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia menatoi;
Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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