Octomeria gemmula Carnevali & I.Ramírez 1986

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

LATE

Common Name The Little Gem Octomeria

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Amazonas state of Venezulela and Amazonas department of Colombia at elevations up to 200 meters as a miniature to small sized, hot growing, shortly repent epiphyte with erect, comparitively stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, imbricating tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, lenticular, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the late summer and fall on an erect, peduncle .04 to .08" [1 to 2 mm] long, through a spathe at the base of the leaf, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with a shorter than the ovary floral bract and carrying white flowers with a red spotted lip.

"This small, creeping, Amazonian species forms dense mats of entwined plants. The thick leaves are elliptical and lens shaped, From a comparitively large spathe the flowers are borne near the tips of the leaves or beyond by proportionally long ovaries and pedicels. The similar sepals and petals are white, narrowly elliptical-ovate and acute. The white lip is spotted with red and deeply trilobed with large, incinate lobes above the base." Luer 2010

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 Drawing fide

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