Masdevallia theleura Luer 1980 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986
Photo by Duane McDowell and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
and 
Common Name or Meaning The Nipple-Like Tail Masdevallia
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of southern Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, close, imbricating, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate to elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowed below into the channeled petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and fall on an erect, arising from low on the ramicaul, with a bract near the baseslender, triquetrous, 6 to 10.8" [15 to 27 cm] long, congested, successively several flowered, racemose inflorescence and conduplicate, obtuse, imbricating, shorter to just longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Related to M cuprea and M weberbaueri but distinguished by the long, triquetrous peduncle that far surpasses the leaf and a congested raceme of imbricating floral bracts and short peduncles. From the short sepaline tube, the lateral sepals are broadly expanded into a synsepal witha pair of .08" [2 mm] long nipple-like tails. THe slender tail of the dorsal sepal is erect and more or less reflexed. The petals and lip are not unlike thse of the 2 related species." Luer 2000
Synonyms Alaticaulia theleura (Luer) Luer 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Phytologia 47: 57 1980; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIX Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing ok; Masdevallia's in Kleur Vol 1 P M Oversteegen, Eisses & A P Sijm 2001 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing good; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Alaticaulia theleura; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Alaticaulia theleura drawing good tails too long!; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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