Myoxanthus gorgon Luer 1983
SUBGENUS Myoxanthus SECTION Myoxanthus Luer 1992
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Photo by © Lynn O'Shaughnessy and her Pleurothallid Website
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Gorgon Myoxanthus [refers to the flowers appearance to snaky hair]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Morona-Santiago and Pastaza provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1000 to 1500 meters as a medium to large sized, cool growing epiphtye with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7 tubular, hispidulous sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, rigidly coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-ovate, acute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a fascile of several, simultaneous, .05 to .1" [1 to 2 mm] long, shortly pubescent, single flowered inflorescence with inflated, infundibular, coarsly long-pubescent, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Closest to !Myoxanthus monophyllus but distinguished by the yellow flowers, much shorter peduncles, much shorter and broader sepals and much shorter thicker petals. In both species the floral bract encloses the pedicel, ovary and bases of the sepals." Luer 1992
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol IX Systematics of Myoxanthus Luer 1992 Drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing/photo fide; A taxonomic synopsis and morphological characterization of Myoxanthus (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae) Gustavo Rojas-Alvarado, Mario A. Blanco, A. P. Karremans 2021 Photo fide
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