Myoxanthus pennellius (Luer) Rojas-Alv. & Karremans 2021

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Flower Photo ? correct for Luer's drawing but no mention of these colors

Photos by Charles Wilson Copyright ©

Common Name The Small Quill Myoxanthis [refers to the leaves]

Flower Size .08" [2mm]

Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador at elevations around 600 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing, frequently prolific epiphyte with short, slender, terete ramicauls with 3 to 4 close, tubular, scabrous sheaths with the lower ones being densely pubescent and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly fusiform, acuminate, acute, tridenticulate, very narrowly cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall on a fasciculate, arising from the base of the leaf through a pilose spathe, .16" [3.5 mm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence .

CAUTION Luer described this species in 1976 and later in error [1992] made it a synonym of Myoxanthus scandens but Pupulin [2010] after closely viewing Ames drawings of M scandens separated this species which in reality are quite different because of coloring and how the petals look. Luer states that this species is similar vegetatively to M scandens but differs in being less prolific.

Synonyms Pleurothallis pennelliae Luer 1976

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Selbyana 3(1-2): 160-161, f. 183. Luer 1976 as Pleurothallis pennellia drawing fide;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol IX Luer 1992 as M scandens not;

Phytotaxa 507: 244 Rojas-Alv & Karremans 2021

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