Pleurothallis grandis Rolfe 1918 SUBGENUS Dracontia Luer 1986 SECTION Brodingnagia

Photo courtesy of Daniel Jimenez ©

Another Flower color

Photo by Denis Deralu and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website.

Drawing

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Large Pleurothallis [refers to the size of the plant]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in Cartago, Heredia and Guanacaste provinces of Costa Rica in stunted forests at elevations around 1400 to 2000 meters as a medium to giant sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose terrestrial or epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped below the middle by a loose, tubular sheath and 2 shorter sheaths below and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, acute to subacute, sessile, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on an erect, arising through a small spathe at the apex of the ramicaul, 16 to 23.2" [40 to 58 cm] long, subdense, secund, simultaneously many flowered, racemose inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"The largest of the subgenus, can be over 40" [1 meter tall withoutt the inflorescence with dinner plate leaves. The spathe is very small and the large flowers are producesd simultaneously in a long, loose, secund raceme. The dorsal sepal is long and narrow and the broader synsepal is bifid. The petals are narrow and surve downward with a longitudinal carina on the inner surface. The lip is oblong with erect, concave lateral lobes above he base." Luer 1998

Synonyms Dracontia grandis (Rolfe) Luer 2004; Stelis alta Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2002; Stelis grandis (Rolfe) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1918: 234 Rolfe 1918;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVII Systematics of Pleurothallis Section Abortivae, Truncatae, Subsection Acroniae, Subgenera Dracontia and Uncifera Luer 1998

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVII Systematics of Pleurothallis Section Abortivae, Truncatae, Subsection Acroniae, Subgenera Dracontia and Uncifera Luer 1998 drawing fide;

Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:263 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis grandis nom illegal;

Lindleyana 17: 98 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2002 as Stelis alta;

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 2004as Dracontia grandis;

Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide;

AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #9 2011 as Dracontia grandis photo fide;

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