Myoxanthus melittanthus (Schltr.) Luer 1982 SUBGENUS Myoxanthus SECTION Antenella Luer 1992
Photo by © Patricia Harding
Photo by © Ron Parsons
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
Common Name The Honey-Bee Flowered Myoxanthus
Flower Size .15" [3 mm]
Found in Colombia and Venezuela in cloud forests at elevations of 2300 to 3000 as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with .4" [1 cm] between each slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 4 to 7 tubular, hispidous sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on a fascile of single, successive flowers arising at the apex of the ramicaul and has pubescent, shorter to longer than the pedicel floral bracts.
"The flowers are similar to the shorter, repent Myoxanthus hystrix The ramicaul of M melittanthus, clas in long-hirsute sheaths is longer than the leaf. From within the small, dark purplish, pubescsent flower the long, slender, more or less slightly capitate petals protrude like a pair of antennas of an insect. The lip is simple, but acutely rolled into a transverse tube so that the apex reaches the hinged base. This species is also related to Myoxanthus cimex and Myoxanthus reymondii but the flower of M melittanthus is much smaller with much smaller clavate tips of the slender petals." Luer 1992
Synonyms *Pleurothallis melittantha Schltr. 1924
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Beitrage Zur Orchideenkunde Von Colombia 27:49 Schlechter 1924 as Pleurothallis melittantha; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of the Pleurothallidinae Vol 1 1986 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol IX Systematics of Myoxanthus Luer 1992 Drawing fide; 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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