Pleurothallis cachensis Ames 1923 SUBGENUS Unguella Luer 2004,
Photo by © Fernandez
TYPE Drawing by Oakes Ames
Common Name or Meaning The Cachi Pleurothallis [An Area of Costa Rica]
Flower Size .2” [5 mm]
Found in Carchi province of Costa Rica at elevations of 1150 to 1200 meters as a small sized, cool growing, pendent, presumably caespitose epiphyte with slender, ramicauls enveloped by an elongate, scarious sheath below the middle and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, linear-oblong leaf that blooms on an arising through a spathe, 1.6" [4 cm] long, much shorter than the leaf, to 18 flowered inflorescence with infundibuliform, dilated upward, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"Similar to Pleurothallis obscura in plant habit but totally different in the structure of the inflorescence." Ames 1923
"Characterized by the pendent habit, a slender ramicaul with a loose sheath below the middle, a narrowly elliptical leaf and shorter pendent racemes. The dorsal sepal is slender but the laterals are connate into a deeply concave, inflated synsepal with acute, free apices. The petals are narrowly linear and entire. The lip is trilobed with the basal lobes broadly rounded and erect. The base is long clawed with a callus below which the claw becomes more slender when it is attached to the narrow tip of the column foot." Luer 2004
Synonyms Acianthera cachensis (Ames) Karremans 2016; Unguella cachensis (Ames) Luer 2005
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Schedul. Orch. 4: 17 Ames 1923 Drawing fide;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
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 Unguella cachensis;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 as Unguella cachensis;
Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Acianthera cachensis photo fide
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