Pleurothallis luna-crescens Pupulin, J.Aguilar & Mel.Fernández 2017 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciclatae Lindl. 1859

TYPE Drawing

Photo/Drawing by © Franco Pupulin

MID

Common Name The Crescent Moon Pleurothallis [refers to the flowers profile]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Cartago province of Costa Rica on the Caribbean slopes of the Talamanca mountain chain in central Costa Rica in primary wet, premontane forests at elevations around 700 to 1600 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, terete, slender, pale green ramicauls enveloped basally by a tubular, truncate, sheath an a subbasal obtuse tight sheath becoming brown and papyraceous when mature and carrying a single, apical, erect, becoming subpendent wth age, thinly coriaceous, flexible, sessile, lanceolate, acute, ahortly subacuminate, deeply cordate basally leaf that blooms in the mid winter and spring on an erect, arising through an erect, rectangular-subclavate, truncate, glumaceous, becoming brown and papyraceous spathe, single flowered inflorescence.

"Among the species of Pleurothallis with cordate, narrow, reflexed leaves and erect spathes, P. luna-crescens is most similar to P. radula, but the latter has flowers invariably concolorous yellow, and the lip is covered by an indumentum formed by densely packed, shortly tuberculate-dentate, irregular projections, which are absent in P. luna-crescens. It is also similar to P. rectipetala, but the crescentshaped flowers (vs. straight), and the longer petals (>3 times longer than broad) with strongly dentate margins (vs. minutely denticulate) of the new taxon distinguish the two species. Pleurothallis rectipetala has been compared (Luer 2005) with the Panamanian P. scitula Luer, but the latter species has ovate leaves and pubescent flowers, with the sepals almost as long as the sepals, while both the protologue and the type of the Costa Rican P. rectipetala show a glabrous flower with shorter petals, approximately half long as the sepals." Pupulin, J.Aguilar & M.Díaz 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* LANKESTERIANA 17(2): 154 Pupulin, J.Aguilar & M.Díaz 2017 drawing/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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