Pleurothallis moritzii Rchb.f. 1850 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
EARLY 
Common Name Moritz's Pleurothallis [German Orchid Collector 1800's]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Guyana, Venezuela and Ecuador at elevations 1725 to 2700 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte or terrestrial with fasciculate, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3, loose, imbricating others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the subpetiolate to shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter, spring and early summer on 1 to 4, subcongested, more or less distichous, arising through a compressed spathe from an annulus near or below the abscission layer, 3.2 to 6" [8 to 15 cm] long, simultaneously several to many flowered, racemose inflorescence with an inflated, infundibular, shorter to longer than the ovary floral bract..
"Characterized by stout, fasciculated ramicauls with loose sheaths at the base and another near the middle. The leaves are ellitical and subpetiolate, sometimes shortly petiolate. From a large spathe the few, elongate. simultaneously several to many flowered inflorescence emerge. The sepals are connate only near the base and pubescent within, above the middle. The three veined petals are thin, broadly elliptical and concave and the proportionally small lip is triangular and narrowly obtuse with a small pair of calli below the middle." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe moritzii (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004; Humboldtia moritzii (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891; Stelis moritzii (Rchb.f.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Linnaea 22: 824 Rchb.f 1850;
Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 668 Kuntze 1891 as Humboltia moritzii;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 4 Dunsterville and Garay 1966 drawing as P elegans drawing good; Flora de Venzuela Volumen XV Parte 2 Foldats 1970 drawing as P elegans; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville and Garay 1976; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing good; Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing good; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as as Stelis moritzii; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; 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 moritzii
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