!Phloeophila nummularia (Rchb.f.) Garay 1974
Photo by Dalton Holland Baptista
Drawings by © Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY
and again 
Common Name The Coin-Like Phloeophila [refers to the leaf]
Flower Size .2" [5mm]
Found in Holguin province Cuba, Jamaica, Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador, La Paz department of Bolivia and Rio de Janiero State of Brazil in seasonally humid valleys at elevations around 800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, repent epiphyte with a creeping, stout rhizome with short, horizontal ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular more or less spiculate sheaths and carrying a single, prostrate, distichous, green above, purple beneath, verrucose, thickly coriaceous, broadly elliptical to subcircular, obtuse to rounded below to broadly cuneate into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a erect, sparsely pubecent, .1 to .25 " [1 to 8 mm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from the apex of the ramicaul with an infundibular, sparsely pubescent-spiculate, as long as the ovary to shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
Distinguished by the tiny, rounded, minutely verrucosa, prone leaves that are produced alternately by a comparitively stout rhizzome. The single, pubescent flower that emerges from near the apex of the short ramicaul is larger than the leaf. A short, filiment [the vestigal bud of the second flower] is present within the spiculate floral bract. The sepals are fleshy annd pubescent externally, the dorsal sepal is shorter than the synsepal to which it is conante nearly half its length into a broad tube. the petals are narrow and acute and the lip is merely oblong, but with a pair of low calli and low, ill-defined, marginal lobes on the lower third." Luer 2006
CAUTION This species and P peppermioides are most likely the same species and if so then this species name takes precedence.
Synonyms Pabstiella nummularia (Rchb.f.) Chiron 2012; Phloeophila echinantha (Barb.Rodr.) Hoehne & Schltr. 1926; Phloeophila paulensis Hoehne & Schltr. 1926; Physosiphon echinanthus (Barb.Rodr.) Cogn. 1896; Pleurothallis echinantha Barb.Rodr. 1881; Pleurothallis nummularia Rchb.f. 1865; Pleurothallis paulensis (Hoehne & Schltr.) Luer 1986; Pleurothallis scalaris Griseb. 1866; Specklinia nummularia (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Cat. Pl. Cub.: 259 Griseb. 1866 as Pleurothallis scalaris;
Gen. Spec. Orchid. 2: 22 Barb Rodr. 1881 as Pleurothallis echinantha; Flora Brasilense 3(4): 338 Cogniaux 1896 as Physosiphon echinanthus; Flora Brasilense 3(4): tab 118 Cogniaux 1896 as Physosiphon echinanthus;
Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909; Arch. Bot. São Paulo 1: 200 Hoehne & Schlechter 1926 as P echinantha; Arch. Bot. São Paulo 1: 201 Hoehne & Schlechter 1926 as P Paulensis; Iconografia de Orchidaceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 as P paulensis drawing fide; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as P echinata; *Orquideologia 9: 118 Garay 1974; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 7 385 - 448 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1975 as P echinantha; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 7 385 - 448 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1975 as P paulensis drawing ok Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as P echinata drawing ok; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 as Pleurothallis echinata; Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 as Pleurothallis nummularia; Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 as Pleurothallis paulensis; Catologo Descriptivo de Las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna 1987 as Pleurothallis nummularia; Orchids of Jamaica Gloudon & Tobisch 1995 as Pleurothallis nummularia; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000 as Pleurothallis nummularia; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 1 Pleurothallidinae Vasquez & Ibisch 2000 as Pleurothallis echinantha; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Phloeophila echinantha; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Phloeophila nummularia Systematics and evolution of the genus Pleurothallis R. Br. (Orchidaceae) in the Greater Antilles Hagen Stenzel 2004 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Specklinia nummularia; AOS Bulletin Vol 75 No 11 2006 as P echinata photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration Of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006 as Phloeophila nummularia
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration Of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006 as Phloeophila nummularia drawing fide; Richardiana 13: 131 Chiron 2013 as Pabstiella nummularia;
Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014; Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 photo fide
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