Pleurothallis mystax Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Mystax Luer 1986 TYPE for the SUBGENUS
Photo by © Jay Pfahl
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Mustached Pleurothallis
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Veraguas province of Panama in cloud forests at elevations of 650 to 1000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with a well developed ramicaul enveloped basally by a loose tubular sheath carrying a single, apical, broadly elliptical, obtuse, rounded and sessile basally leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, arising from a spathe, 1" [2.5 cm] long, longer than the leaf successively single, 2 flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"The little secondary stems are longitudinally ribbed, but more than half the length is covered by a loose sheath which originates near the base. The little leaf is nearly circular, and from a minute spathe at the base the fine peduncle emerges to bear an oversized flower. The flowers are dark purple with a broad white stripe down the center of the keeled sepals. The petals overlap above the long, channeled claw of the lip, and the rounded apical half of the lip protrudes from the center of the flower. At this point the underlying lateral sepals suddenly diverge in opposite directions like a handle-bar moustache beneath a bulbous nose." Luer 1976
Synonyms Mystacorchis mystax [Luer] Szach & Marg. 2001; Stelis mystax (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 3(1-2): 146, f. 176 Luer 1976 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Stelis mystax;
Polish Bot. J. 46(2): 117 Szlach. & Marg., 2001 as Mystacorchis mystax;
AOS Bulletin Vol 72 No 9 2003 photo fide;
Icones Pleurothallidianrum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis In Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 as Mystacorchis mystax;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #9 2011 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 83 #3 2014 as Stelis mystax photo fide;
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