Pleurothallis batillacea Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATER 
EARLY 
Common Name The Shovel-Like Pleurothallis [refers to the large lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Putumayo department of Colombia and Carchi and Pichinche provinces of Ecuador on road embankments in cloud forests at elevations of 1600 to 2700 meters as a small to large sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose terrestrial or epiphyte with fasiculate, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath near the middle an d 2 to 3, tubular, imbricating, loose sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical to suborbicular, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer and early fall on 1 to 5, racemose, simultaneous, arising through a broad spathe from an annulus just below the abscission layer, 7.2 to 10.8" [18 to 27 cm] long, including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, secund, densely simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with aninflated, much longer than the ovary floral bract.
"Variable in plant stature but charactetrized by the petiolate base leaf and several, erect, strict, secund, densely many flowered racemes longer than the leaf and subtended by a large foliaceous spathe. The sepals are obtuse and minutely ciliate, the petals are obtuse and three veined and the ovate lip is obscurely three lobed, the anterior lobe rounded and callous, the rounded lateral lobes erect with an intramarginal callus." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe batillacea (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis batillacea (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 3: 58 Luer 1976 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systemics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:261 Pridgeon and Chase 2001 as Stelis battilacea;
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 Crocodeilanthe batillacea
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