Pleurothallis pilifera Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
Photo by © Andreas Kaye and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
THROUGH 
Common Name The Hair Bearing Pleurothallis
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Pichincha, Carchi and Imbabura provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1400 to 2550 meters as a medium to large sized, cool to cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a close tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, acute, acuminate, deeply cuneate below into the elongate, slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer through fall on a fascile of 3 to 6, erect, congested, more or less secund, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the abscission layer, 7.2 to 16" [ 18 to 40 cm] long including the 2 to 4.8" [5 to 12 cm] long, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an as long as the ovary floral bract.
Similar to P jamiesonii except for the central cleft and the rounded basal callus of the lip. The lip is almost identical to P prolificans but theyt are separated miostly by the non prolofic, densely caespitose habit of P pilifera.
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe pilifera (Lindl.) Luer 2004; Humboltia pilifera (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891; Stelis pilifera (Lindl.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Selbyana 3: 172 Luer 1976 drawing fide;
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate 250 Dodson 1980 drawing fide
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:265 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis pilfera;
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 pilifera;
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