Masdevallia ova-avis Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Amanda Luer 1986
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
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Common Name The Birds Egg Masdevallia [Refers to the shape of the flowers being like a clutch of bird's eggs.]
Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]
Found in western Ecuador at elevations of 2000 to 2500 meters as a small sized, cold growing terrestrial or epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, petiolate, elliotic, subacute leaf that is cuneate below into the slender, sulcate petiole and blooms in the winter, spring and summer on a slender, erect to semi-erect then horizontal congested, distichous, 10" [25 cm] long, simultaneously 6 to 9 flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul with 2 short bracts and a cucullate floral bract .
Cited as a synonym of Masdevallia tridens but there are many differences that are obvious so I will keep them apart at this time. Distinguished from M tridens by the larger, gray-blue sepals that are blotched, dotted and spewed with purple, the simultaneous opening flowers, in a short, crowded, circular ramcemose inflorescence with the flowers in a horizontal plane with a downward display of yellow sepaline tails
Synonyms Spilotantha ova-avis (Luer) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXV Systematics of Masdevallia Part Five Luer 2003 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Spilotantha ova-avis; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Spilotantha ova-avis drawing fide; Masdevallia in Detail Vol 5 Sijm etal 2010 photo/drawing fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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