Pleurothallis salpingantha Luer & Hirtz 1998 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Photo Website
Common Name or Meaning The Trumpet Like Pleurothallis [refers to the sepaline tube]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Tachira state of Venezuela, Norte de Santander, Santander and Quindio departments of Colombia and Loja, Carchi, Pichincha, Napo, Morona-Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 2200 to 3400 meters as a small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with fasciculate, stout, erect ramcauls enveloped by a close tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 loose, imbricating others 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 winter and spring on a racemose, 1 to a few, simultaneous, arising through a spathe with an annulus below the abscission layer, comparatively stout, more or less secund to distichous, of .48 to 8.8" [12 to 22cm] long, densely and simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with a tubular, longer than the ovary floral bract.
"Similar to the variable P laevigata but P salpingantha has 1 to a few, long, multiflowered racemes are produced from a large, fliaceous sheath at the base of a sessile leaf, The flowers are distinguished by bright yellow color and deeply connate sepals that form a sepaline tube below the middle. The free portions are about equal in size and shape and recurve only slightly. The broad, three veined petals and oblong lip are very similar to P laevigata. The apex of the lip is broadly rounded or more or less narrrowly obtuse and the pair of lunate callia are present near or below the middle of the disc." luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe salpingantha (Luer & Hirtz) Luer 2004; Stelis salpingantha (Luer & Hirtz) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide;
Lindleyana 16(4): 266. (Ames) Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Stelis salpingnantha;
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 salpignantha
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