Pleurothallis paradoxa Luer & Dalström 1996 SUBGENUS Didactylus Luer 2004
Photo by © Gilberto Merino and The Blue Nanta Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name or Meaning The Strange Pleurothallis [refers to the unusual aspects of the plants]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Imbabura and Morona-Santiago provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 to 1500 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect, slender, slightly compressed above ramicauls enveloped by a close, tubular sheath at the base and 1 to 2 shorter ones and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the winter and summer on an erect?, arching?, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, 1.2 to 1.8" [3 to 4.5 cm] long including the 1" [2.5 cm] long peduncle, looosely few flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the well developed ramicaul, a few flowered raceme shorter than the rigid, sessile leaf, with tall-carinate, box-like flowers. The middle sepal is acommodated by the synsepal from which it separates only slightly. The synsepal is formed in the same manner as that of a Zootrophion with erect sides above external carinae and convex within and deeply concave externally. The petals are proportionally very small, hastate and glabrous. The lip is large and tubular above the middle with finely villous, revolute sides. The apex of the column is hooded and minutely denticulate." Luer 2004
Synonyms Didactylus paradoxa (Luer & Dalström) Luer 2005
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Lindleyana 11: 177 Luer & Dalstrom 1996 Drawing fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide;
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 Didactylus paradoxa;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 as Didactylus paradoxa;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 185 Kerremans 2016 as Acianthera paradoxa;
Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Acianthera paradoxa photo fide
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