Pleurothallis ringens C.Schweinf. 1942 SUBGENUS Talpinaria [Karst] Luer 1986
Photos by © Wiel Driessen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Ames ©
Common Name The Rigid Pleurothallis
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Peru at elevations of 1200 to 1500 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, close, tubular, evanescent sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, ovate to ovate-elliptic, rounded to obtuse, broadly cuneate below into the channeled, petiolate base leaf that blooms on an abbreviated, arising through a prominent, conduplicate spathe, successively single, few to many flowered inflorescence with thin, tubualr, much shorter than the pedicel floralbract.
Differs from the similar and often synomonous P hitchcockii in the purple striping on all parts, divergent lateral sepal apices, the much wider distance between the 2 calli on the lip, the recurved apex of the lip and the much lower wing-like side lobes of the lip
CAUTION this species is almost always cited as a synonym of P hitchcockii but if this determination is correct then they are quite different. I await better references to decide if it is separate or not.
Synonyms Talpinaria ringens (C.Schweinf.) Luer & Thoerle2011
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Bot. Mus. Leafl. 10: 186 Schweinfurth 1942;
Bot. Mus. Leafl. 10: Plate 21 Schweinfurth 1942 Drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis subgenera Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 as syn of P hitchcockii;
Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Schweinfurth 1959 drawing good; Harvard Papers in Botany Vol 1 No 2: 358 Luer, Thoerle and Werner 2011 as Talipinaria ringens;
AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #9 2017 photo fide;
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