Myoxanthus gyas (Luer & R.Vásquez) Luer 1982 SUBGENUS Myoxanthus SECTION Scandentia Luer 1992
Photos by © Rebecca Repasky and The Atrium Biodiversity Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
LATER
Common Name The Gyas Myoxanthus [Mythological god with 100 arms refering to the inflorescence with the protruding petals]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Peru and Bolivia at elevations around 2600 to 3400 meters as a medium sized, cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial with prolific, slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 8, tubular, hispid sheaths and carrying an erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate below into the conduplicate, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring and summer on a glomerate mass of old peduncles and sheaths, with a fascile of .08 to .16" [2 to 4 mm] long, successive, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with 1 to 5 simultaneous flowers and hispid, infundibular, inflated, enclosing the pedicel, ovary and bases of the sepals floral bracts.
"Similar to Myoxanthus frutex but distinguished by the habit of only producung one stout ramicaul after the other, larger leaves, and larger flowers with the antenna-like petals much exceeding the sepals. The lips and column of both species are indistinguishable." Luer 1992
Synonyms Pleurothallis frutex var. robusta C.Schweinf. 1951; *Pleurothallis gyas Luer & R.Vásquez 1981
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol IX Systematics of Myoxanthus Luer 1992 Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 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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