Pleurothallis quadriserrata Luer SUBGENUS Acianthera [Scheidw.] Luer 1986
Photo by © Javier Zambrano Romero
Drawing by Carl Luer
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
Common Name or Meaning The Four Sawed Pleurothallis [refers to the serrate margins on the petals]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Pichincha, Esmeraldas and Los Rios provinces of Ecuador in shady, wet tropical forests at elevations around 150 to 500 meters as a miniature to just small sized, hot growing, shortly repent to caespitose epiphyte with occasionally prolific, slender, erect to hanging, elongate, terete ramicauls with a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, thickly coriaceous, dark purple suffused, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on a arising through a spathe at the base of the leafloose, distichous, 1.6 to 2.4" [4 to 6 cm] long, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"The unusual condition of the petals suggests a relationship with Pleurothallis carinata Schweinfurth, which occurs in Peru at a considerable altitude on the opposite side of the Andes, but the lip of the latter differs in being apiculate, in having small, erect, triangular lateral lobes, and in lacking the basal auricles. The flowers are dark yellow and the secondary stems apparently are not proliferative, but produced from a creeping rhizome." Luer 1975
"Distinguished by the inflorescence shorter than the leaf. The sepals are marked with purple, especially along the veins. The petals are distinctive with a serrated, longitudinal crest just inside both denticulate margins which creates 2 pairs, or 4 serrated margins on each petal. The non-verrucose lip is broadly and shallowly channeled between low, longitudinal calli and erect marginal angles below the middle." Luer 2004
Synonyms Acianthera quadriserrata (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Selbyana1(1): 82. Luer 1975 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 253 Dodson 1980 drawing good;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:246 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Acianthera quadriserriata;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo good;
Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Acianthera quadriserrata photo fide;
Phytotaxa 422 (3) Zambrano & Solano 2019 photo fide;
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