Pleurothallis mendietae [Luer, Thoerle & F.Werner] in ed. SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by Luer, Thoerle and Werner and Harvard Pap. Bot. 16(2): 321. Thoerle and Werner 2011.

Common Name Mendieta's Pleurothallis [Ecuadorian original collector of the species current]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zsmora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2200 to 2300 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with stout erect ramicauls with a close tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 2, erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus, peduncle 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, rachis 6.4 to 6.8" [16 to 17 cm] long, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"The unusual lip separates it form others in the subsection. the habit is large and robust with multiple simultaneous flowers in an elongated raceme. The lateral sepals are semiconnate, the petals are oblong and the lip is thick, ovate and apically bilobed with only a small pair od low calli on the disc above the middle." Luer 2011

Synonyms *Crocodeilanthe mendietae Luer, Thoerle & F.Werner 2011 2016

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 16(2): 321. Thoerle and Werner 2011 as Crocodeilanthe mendietae drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------