Pleurothallis alta Luer 1996 SUBGENUS Specklinia SECTION Hymenodanthae SUBSECTION Longicaulae [Barb. Rodr.] Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Luer/Dalstrom

Deep shade Cold Summer

Common Name The Tall Pleurothallis [refers to the long inflorescence]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Carchi province of Ecuador in wet montane forests at elevations around 2450 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, shortly repent epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coricaeous, narrowly obovate, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the long-petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising from near the base of the ramicaul, to 10.8" [27 cm] or more long, including the ancipitous peduncle of 6.8" [17 cm] long, lax, successively few, several flowered inflorescence with as long as the pedicel floral bracts.

"Distinguished by the narrow, long-petiolate leaves borne by much shorter ramicauls from an ascending rhizome. Vegetatively it is the largest species of the genus. The peduncle is compressed and as long as the leaf with the ramicaul and the raceme reaches another 4" [10 cm] higher. The sepals are tall-carinate with sharply acute apices. Immediately behind the apices the sepals are thickly callous." Luer 2006

Synonyms Specklinia alta (Luer) Luer 2004

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Lindleyana 11: 143-144 Luer 1996 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 alta;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006 as Specklinia alta Drawing fide;

Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Specklinia digitale photo fide

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