Pleurothallis possoae Luer 2000 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name Posso's Pleurothallis [Martha Posso, Colombian Orchid Enthusiast and co-collector of species current]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Putumayo department of Colombia at elevations around 3000 to 3300 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout, fasciculate ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath and 2 to 3 loose, tubular, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on 1 to 3, erect, secund, arising through a foliaceous spathe at the base of the leaf, to 4 to 6.4" [10 to 16 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, densely and simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an inflated, cucullate, obtuse, enclosing the pedicel, ovary and base of the flower floral bract.
"In habit this species resembles P xiphuzusa but the flowers are larger with ciliate-pubescent sepals within and with the latrerals acute and free from below the middle. The petals are broadly oblong. The lip and column are also similar to P laevigata with the subquadrate lip that is bicallous near the middle." Luer 2000
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe possoae (Luer) Luer 2004
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:265 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis possoae;
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 Crocodielanthe possae
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