Pleurothallis rhodotantha Rchb.f. 1850 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Reddish Flowered Pleurothallis

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia at elevations around 1800 to 3000 meters as a small to medium sized, cool to cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect, fasciculate ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3, imbricating sheaths at the base at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 2 to 3, slender, arising through a slender spathe from an annulus just below the abscission layer, congested, more or less distichous, on a 6 to 10" [15 to 25 cm] long including the 1.2" [3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, as long to shorter than the ovary floral bract.

Similar to P velaticaulis, the flowers differing mostly in details of the lip. L rhodotantha has an oblong lip with a pair of erect, central calli. The basal cavity is narrow and transverse. The lip of P velaticalis is ovate with intramarginal calli and the basal cavity is more or less rounded." Luer 1998

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe rhodotantha (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004; Pleurothallis potamophila Schltr. 1924; Pleurothallis procera Luer & R.Vásquez 1981; Stelis rhodotantha (Rchb.f.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Linnaea 22: 825 Rchb.f 1850;

Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 27: 53 Schlechter 1924 as P potamophila;

Phytologia 49 3:214 Luer & Vasquez 1981 as P procera

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986 as P procera;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;

Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:266 2001 as Stelis rhodotantha

Orchids of Bolivia Vasquez & Ibisch Vol 1 2000 drawing fide;

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 rhodotantha;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------