Pleurothallis fantastica Ames 1936 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859
Photo by © Daniel Jimenez and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Oakes Ames
Common Name The Fantastic Pleurothallis
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Cartago, Puntarenas and San Jose provinces of Costa Rica at elevations 950 to 1400 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with descending, horizontal, slightly compressed above ramciaul enveloped below the middle by a closely adpressed, tubular sheath and another 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, spreading, pendent, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, more or less incurved sides, concave at the subcordate to cuneate base leaf witht he margins decurrent on the ramicaul for about .8" [2 cm] that blooms in the summer on a short, arising through a spathe, successively single flowered inflorescence and has athin, tubualar, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"It is easy to distinguish Pleurothallis fantastica from any other species in the genus by the long, narrow, pendent leaves borne on a distally ancipitous ramicaul, which are cuneate (not cordate) at the base, and the flower showing a distinctly 3-lobed lip, the lateral lobes broad, elliptic, spread out, and the midlobe small, excised." Pupulin 2021
Synonyms Acronia fantastica (Ames) Luer 2005; Pleurothallis horichii Luer 1985; Zosterophyllanthos horichii (Luer) Szlach. & Marg. 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Bot. Mus. Leafl. 4(4): 45 Ames 1936 drawing fide;
Orchidee (Hamburg) 36(1): 23 Luer 1985 as Pleurothallis horichii drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 as P horichii;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVII Systematics of Dryadella and Acronia Section Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 as Acronia fantastica
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVII Systematics of Dryadella and Acronia Section Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 as Acronia fantastica drawing fide;
Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide;
Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide;
Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 26, No. 1 2021, The Researchgate Website photo/drawing fide;
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