Pleurothallis molleturoi Luer & Dodson 1998 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer © and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name The Molleturo Pleurothallis [A town in southwestern Ecuador]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Azuay province of Ecuador at elevations around 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with fasciculate, slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3, loose, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on 1 to 2, arising through a slender spathe with an annulus, more or less peduncle, .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, rachis 3.2 to 3.6" [8 to 9 cm] distichous, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, just short to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate flowers.

"Characterized by the comparitively slender ramicauls and a few multiflowered racemes shorter than the long-petiolate, elliptical leaf. The small, non-resupinate flowers are fleshy and thickly carinate. The petals are comparitively large, obtuse and three veined. The lip is ovate with the usual pair of calli barely visible within the margin just below the middle." Luer 1998

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe molleturoi (Luer & Dodson) Luer 2004; Stelis molleturoi (Luer & Dodson) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;

Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:264 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis molleturoi;

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 Crocodeilanthe molleturoi;

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