Masdevallia tentaculata Luer 1982 SUBGENUS Amanda Luer 1986
Photos by John Varigos and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Tentacled Masdevallia [refers to the sepaline tails]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in central Ecuador around 2000 to 3100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial on roadbanks with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, loose, imbricating, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a erect, slender, 2.8 to 4" [7 to 10 cm] long, loosely 4 to 8 flowered, distichous, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul, with a bract below the middle and an inflated, oblique floral bract and holding the flowers well above the leaf height.
Synonyms Spilotantha tentaculata (Luer) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Selbyana 7: 112 Luer 1982 drawing fide;
Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXV Masdevallia Part 5 Luer 2003 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Spilotantha tentaculata;
Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Spilotantha tentaculata drawing fide;
Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
