Trichosalpinx dependens [Luer]Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Trichosalpinx
Photo by © Carl Luer and the The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany renz herbaria Website
Plant and Flowers Photo by © Milan Vagner
Front View of Flower Photos by Linda & Mikael Karlbom
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
to 
and 
Common Name The Pendant Growing Trichosalpinx
Flower Size 1/16" [3 mm]
Found in French Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador Peru and Bolivia wet montane forests and warmer piedmont forests at elevations of 500 to 3000 meters as a miniature to small sized, pendant, warm to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with fractiflex ramicauls, with an annulus and a tubular, scarious, lepanthiform sheath held at each internode, that are longer than the, single, apical, narrowly lanceolate, acute, coriaceous, gradually narrowing below into the base, dull green leaf that has a short, apical, filiforme, .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, racemose inflorescence that is held at the base of the leaf with a few simultaneously opening flowers that occurs in the summer and winter.
This orchid has both toilet bowl shaped and gaping flowers and is highly variable throughout its distribution.
" Most plants of T dependens are pendent with the ramicauls more or less flexuous with conspicuous, elongated apices of distichous, lepanthiform sheaths, similar to those of the pendent T berlineri. The leaves vary in size and shape. The racemes are congested, distichous and much shorter than the leaf. Some flowers are very small while others can reach .2" [5 mm]. Typically the lateral sepals are partially connate and connivent into a concave synsepal as seen in T memor, but often the cavity is incomplete with more or less erect lateral sepals that are thicker towards the apex. The petals are small and membraneous with cilaite apices. The lip is ciliate and more or less oblong with a rounded apex. A low, rounded callus is at its base, flanked by a comparitively large pair of diverging lobules. The column is winged and bidentate apically, not fringed. A similar, closely allied, sympatric taxon T patula differs with more gaping flowers with decurved lateral sepals. It grades into the forms of T dependens with less complete, concave synsepals." Luer 1997
Synonyms Pendusalpinx dependens (Luer) Karremans & Mel.Fernández 2018; *Pleurothallis dependens Luer 1976; Pleurothallis flexibilis Luer & R. Vásquez 1981; Trichosalpinx flexibilis (Luer & R. Vásquez) Luer 1983
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Selbyana 3: 94 Luer 1976 as P dependens drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 as T ciliaris photo = t dependens fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 392 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing ok; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing/photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo seems not; Orchid Species Of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
