Pleurothallis membracidoides Luer 1980 SUBGENUS Ancipitia SECTION Ancipitia Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name or Meaning The Membracidae-Like Pleurothallis [A treehopper of the order Homoptera in the insect world, an allusion to the shape of the lip resembing the insect]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in Nariño department of Colombia in forests at elevations around 1600 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and 1 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, rigid, coriaceous, ovate, acute, carinate exterally, obtusely cuneate below into the rounded, sessile sides decurrent on the ramicaul leaf that blooms in the fall on erect-arching, arising and partly concealed by a reclining spathe, in a fascile of .6" [1.5 cm] long, filiform, erect, successsively single, few flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Vegetatively it is very similar to other species of the subgenus bit is is easily identified by the tiny lip that resembles a leafhopper." Luer 1989
Synonyms Ancipitia membracidoides (Luer) Luer 2004
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VI Systematics of Pleurothallis subgen Ancipita, Scopula and Trisetella Luer 1989 drawing fide;
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 2004 as Ancipitia membracidioides
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