Pleurothallis nipterophylla C.A.Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859
Photo © Lourens Grobler.
Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Cupped Leaf Pleurothallis
Flower Size 1/8" [3 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations of 1500 to 2900 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, suberect ramicauls enveloped below the middle by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, spreading, rigidly coriaceous, oblong-ovate, obtuse to acute, shortly acuminate, sessile and cordatre at the base leaf that blooms in the spring on a short, arising from a reclining spathe with the peduncle enveloped within the spathe, to .2" [5mm] long, successively single flowered inflorescence with an as long as the pedicel floral bract.
Characterized by the rigidly concave leaf with a cordate base that incurves and overlaps and carryies at the base 1 to 3 small deep purple flowers within the cavity which have an ovoid and deeply concave lip and coarsly pappilose ovaries.
Synonyms Acronia nipterophylla [Luer] Luer 2005; Zosterophyllanthos nipterophyllus (Luer) Szlach. & Kulak 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 3: 148 Luer 1976 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Systematics of Dryadella Systematics of Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 drawing fide as Acronia nipterophylla
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