Pleurothallis expansa Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
THROUGH 
Common Name The Expanded Pleurothallis [refers to the wide open flowers with the broad dorsal sepal
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Nariño department of Colombia and Pichincha, Carchi and Imbabura provinces of Ecuador at elevations of 2000 to 3970 meters as a small to large sized, cold growing, climbing epiphyte with fasciculate to superposed, stout, erect ramicauls with a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, broadly elliptical-ovate, subacute to obtuse, rounded below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer through fall on 1 to 3, distichous to secund, densely and simultaneously many flowered inflorescnece arising through a foliaceous spathe from an annulus below the abscission layer and has inflated, enveloping the pedicel and ovary floral bracts.
"A robust species with prolific ramicauls. Great masses of plants can be found crawling through the scrubby vegetation in wet forests at high altitudes. Long racemes of relatively large, showy, yellow and purple flowers aare produced. The subquadrate lip is divided into a transverse, retuse, apical lobe and a pair of broadly rounded lateral lobes each with a flat, rounded callus. Between them is a minute pair of conical callis similar to those of P fonsflorum." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe expansa (Lindl.) Luer 2004; Humboltia expansa (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891, Stelis expansa (Lindl.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Selbyana 1: 242 Luer 1975 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis expansa;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide;
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 Crocodeilanthe expansa
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