Pleurothallis brachiata Luer 1975 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Antenniferae Luer 1998
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Armed Pleurothallis [refers to the lobes of the lip]
Flower Size .2" [5mm]
Found in Caldas department of Colombia and Tungurahua, Pichincha and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations of 1500 to 2200 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, shortly repent to caespitoses epiphyte or terrestrial on road banks with slender, ascending to erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle, another below the middle and one other at the base carrying a single, apical, erect, coricaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 12, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, erect, arching, subcongested, subsecund, 4 to 6" [10 to 15 cm] long, including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered racemose inflorescence with an oblique, acute, shorter to as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
Similar to P antennifera but differs in the very shortly repent rhizome giving rise to long slender ramicauls carrying long narrow leaves that blooms with several arching racemes of small, greenish flowers.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 1(3): 230, f. 50 Luer 1975 drawing fide;
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate214 Dodson 1980 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of Pleurothallis Vol III Luer 1986;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide;
Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo fide;
Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide
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