Pleurothallis medusa Luer 1997 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Pleurothallis SERIES Pleurothallis Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name or Meaning The Medusa Pleurothallis [an allusion to how the long entwined sepals of the flowers look on the inflorescence]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica at elevations around 2600 to 2800 meters as a medium sized, cold growing, caespitose? terrestrial with slender ramicauls enveloped with a tubular sheath near the middle and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, acute, acuminate, cuneate below into the channeled petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a arising through and concealed by a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul, a dense fascile of numerous, simultaneous single flowered inflorescence with shorter to as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
The species is lke a giant P ruscifolia but is closer to P chloroleuca. Several large flowers with long-attenuate sepals are produced in a tangled conglomeration. The lip is three lobed with the lateal lobes small, erect and below the middle." Luer 1997
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Lindleyana 12:51 Luer 1997 drawing fide;
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