Pleurothallis punicea Luer 1975 SUBGENUS Acianthera [Scheidw.] Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Red Purple Pleurothallis [refers to the floral and vegetative parts]
Flower Size .24 to 2.8" [6 to 7 mm]
Found in Napo province of Ecuador in wet forests at elevations of 600 to 850 meters as a mini-miniature to small sized, warm growing epiphyte with purple, relatively stout, channeled, erect, ramicauls enveloped below the middle by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, purple, elliptical, obtuse to subacute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a congested, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, .4" [1 cm] long including the .2" [5 mm] long peduncle, simultaneously 2 to 3 flowered inflorescence with infundibular, as long as the ovary floral bract.
"The entire plant is suffused with red-purple. The narropw, thickened leaves are proportioanlly long, usually a little longer than the narrowly flattened stems that bear them. The purple striped flowers with a prominent mentum are borne compactly and simultaneouysly on very short racemes of 3 to 4 flowers, The hard and fleshy flowers are only slightly spreading and they remain in seemingly fresh condition as the ovaries swell. The white sepals are narrow and serrated witha solitary purple stripe. The pink lip is abruptly contracted into a narrow claw just below the middle. The apical half is ovate and serrulate witha rounded swelling near the blunt apex." Luer 1975
Synonyms Acianthera punicea (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana 1(3): 270, f. 70. Luer 1975 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Lindleyana 16(4): 246. Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Acianthera punicea
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide;
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