Pleurothallis litotes Luer 1979 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Longiracemosae [Luer] Luer 1998 TYPE for the subsection
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name or Meaning The Simple Pleurothallis
Flower Size .12" [2 mm]
Found in Antioquia and Cauca departments of Colombia and Carchi, Sucumbios, Morona-Santiago and Azuay provinces of Ecuador in wet cloud forests at elevations around 2300 to 3200 meters as a miniature to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls with a thin tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 at the base and carrying a single, apical, narrowly elliptical-ovate, acute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 6, arising through a slender spathe, erect, sublax to subdense, 3.2 to 6.4" [8 to 17 cm] long including the .4 to 1.2" [1 to 3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with a shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
Similar to P divaricans but differs in the slender ramicauls carrying ellitical-ovate, sessile leaves that blooms arising through a small spathe at the leaf base, one to few, very small flowered racemes that are longer than the leaves and the rose to white flowers, but always, to my knowledge, with a bright green lip. The cordate lip is deeply concave and smooth with the apex apiculate." Luer 1979/1999
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 5(2): 170. Luer 1979;
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