Pleurothallis delicatula Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Specklinia SECTION Muscariae Luer 1986

Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Minutely Delicate Pleurothallis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Surrey, Cornwall, Manchester and Clarendon Parishes of Jamaica at elevations around 190 to 1100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to warm growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 2, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on an erect, arising laterally from the ramicaul, filiform, elongating, flexible, flexuous, to 4" [to 10 cm] long including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 mm] long peduncle, lax, successively many flowered inflorescence with as long as the pedicel floral bract.

"Characterized by the small habit with clustered, short ramicauls and thick, elliptical leaves. The flowers are produced in slow succcession in an elongating, flexible, flexuous raceme. The sepals are free, the petals are fimbriate on obliquely, truncate apices and the lip is subpandurate to trilobed with a thickened, rounded, microscopically spiculate apex. Below the middle the disc is trilamellate between thin, low and minutely lacerate lateral lobes. A pair of minute lobules are present on the column below the wings." Luer 2006

Synonyms Andreettaea delicatula (Lindl.) A.Doucette First published in Internet Orchid Sp. Photo Encycl. Nomencl. Notes 8(1):3 2022; Humboltia delicatula (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891; Muscarella delicatula (Lindl.) Luer 2006; Specklinia delicatula (Lindl.) Luer 2004

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Fol. Orchid. 9: 38 Lindley 1859;

Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 667 Kuntze 1891 as Humboltia delicatula;

Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000 drawing no;

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 Specklinia delicatula;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006 as Muscarella delicatula;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII A Reconsideration of Masdevallia Systematics of Specklinia Luer 2006 as Muscarella delicatula drawing fide;

Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014;

Internet Orchid Sp. Photo Encycl. Nomencl. Notes 8(1):3 Doucette 2022 as Andreettaea delicatula

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