Pleurothallis bracteosa C.Schweinf. 1970 SUBGENUS Pseudostelis TYPE for the SUBGENUS
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Full of Bracts Pleurothallis [refers to the floral bracts]
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in Cuzco department of Peru in montane forests at elevations around 2400 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped a close tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a distichous, erect, arising through a slender spathe, strict, to 6” [15 cm] long including the 1.6” [3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an inflated, imbricating, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Characterized by the slender, caespitose habit the narrow leaves about as long as the ramicaul, and blooming on a slender, erect, congested raceme of small flowers engulfed by the equally to longer than the flowers floral bract. The sepals are fleshy, subcarinate and single veined, the petals are oblong and obtuse and the lip is tri-lobed with the anterior lobe oblong with bulbous-like verrucosities." Luer 1999
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe bracteosa (C.Schweinf.) Luer 2011; Stelis bracteosa (C.Schweinf.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Fieldiana, Bot. 33: 20 Schweinfurth 1970
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:261 Pridgeon and Chase 2001 as Stelis bracteosa
Macchu Picchu Orchids Eric Christenson 2003; Harvard Papers in Botany Vol 1 No 2: 358 Luer, Thoerle and Werner 2011 as Crocodeilanthe bracteosa
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