Pleurothallis tuerckheimii Schltr. 1912 SUBGENUS Dracontia SECTION Dracontia Luer 1986
Photo by © The Roellke Orchideen GbR Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer
TYPE Drawing by © Oakes Ames
to 
LATER
Common Name Tuerckheim's Pleurothallis [German Orchid Collector late 1800's early 1900's]
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica and Panama as a medium sized, warm to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte in mixed oak-pine cloud forests at elevations of 700 to 2400 meters with erect stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 2, somewhat inflated sheaths and another below the middle and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, elliptic to oval or lanceolate, obtuse, narrowing below into the conduplicate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer on a racemose, arising from a large, inflated basal spathe, erect, to 14" [to 35 cm] long, loosely, simultaneously several to many [to 20] flowered inflorescence with as long as to just shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Characterized by large, petiolate leaves, a large foliaceous spathe amd a long, arching raceme of numerous, large, simultaneously opening flowers. The usually dark purple sepals are narrow and acute with the laterals forming a cymbiform synsepals with incurved sides. The petals are concave and verrucose externally. The lip is more or less terete, pointed at the apex and with erect, rounded, basl lobes." Luer 1998
Synonyms Dracontia tuerckheimii (Schltr.) Luer 2004; Pleurothallis megachlamys Schltr. 1923; Stelis megachlamys (Schltr.) Pupulin 2002; Stelis megachlamys subsp. teotepecensis Soto Arenas 2002 publ. 2003; Stelis megachlamys (Schltr.) Pupulin 2002; Stelis megachlamys subsp. teotepecensis Soto Arenas 2002 publ. 2003
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 10: 292 Schlechter 1912
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 108. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as P megachlamys;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946;
Orchids of Guatemala and Belize Ames & Correll 1952;
Orchid Digest Vol 23 #6 1959 photo fide;
Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965;
Las Orquedias De El Salvador Vol 2 Hamer 1974 drawing/photo fide;
Las Orquideas de El Salvador Vol 3 Hamer 1981 drawing fide;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1129 Dodson 1984 drawing ok;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide;
The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 photo fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVII Systematics of Pleurothallis Section Abortivae, Truncatae, Subsection Acroniae, Subgenera Dracontia and Uncifera Luer 1998 drawing fide; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo fide;
Oasis Vol 1 No 1 2000 photo;
Orchid Australia Vol 12 No 2 2000 photo;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:267 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Stelis tuerckheimii not = Stelis rubens;
Icones Orchidacearum 5-6 Plate 685 Hagsater & Soto 2003 as Stelis megachlamys ssp teotepecensis drawing ok;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
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 2004as Dracontia tuerkheimii;
Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #9 2011 as Dracontia tuerkheinii photo fide;
Algunas Orquideas De Mexico Suarez 2012 photo as P cobanensis fide;
Guia de Orquideas de Chiapas Carlos Rommel Beutelspacher Baigts 2013 as Stelis megachlamys photo fide;
Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 as Stelis megachlamysphoto fide;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Dracontia megalchlamys;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Dracontia tuerkheimii
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