Pleurothallis amplectens Luer 1980 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Macrophyllae-Racemosae [Lindl] Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name The Clasping Pleurothallis [refers to the lip which embraces the column]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations of 1900 to 2900 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, scandent epiphyte or terrestrial with slender, erect ramicauls with a close tubular sheaths below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ellipitical,acute, slightly acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a drooping, arising through a spathe set below the abscision layer and gives rise to the next ramicaul after flowering, .8 to .88" [2 to 2.2 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"Superficially similar to P eccentrica but differs in the scandet habit and solitary drooping flowers. The sepals and petals of both species are similar but the lips are distinctly different. The suacutely angled sides of the lip are rigidly erect, the truncate apex is deflexed and the basal lobes surround the column." Luer 1999
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide
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