Pleurothallis secunda Poepp. & Endl. 1836 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Antenniferae Luer 1998
Photo by Hans Vissers
TYPE Drawing by Poepp. & Endl
Drawing by Carl Luer
to 
Common Name The One-Sided Bloom Pleurothallis
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru on tree trunks in dense wet forests at elevations of 600 to 3200 meters as a small to just medium sized, warm to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with terete, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 4 tubular sheaths and carrying asingle, apical, erect, elliptic or oblong, acute to shortly acuminate, coriaceous leaf and blooms in the fall, winter and spring on 1 to 2, suberect to arching, lax, to 8" [20 cm] long, simultaneously several-flowered inflorescence with a tubular, as long as to shorter than the pedicel floral bract that holds the non-resupinae flowers out and away from midleaf.
CAUTION!!!”Known only from the type [The photo above is most likely not correct!!!, the type drawing and Luer’s drawing are absolutely correct]. Characterized by a large elliptical, acute leaf carrying a few, loosely several flowered racemes bourne from the subsessile base. The racemes are drawn erect by Poeppig but they appear to have been arched on the type specimen and shorter than the leaf. The flowers are similar to P demissa which produces many flowers in a much longer, drooping raceme. The purple veined [as described] dorsal sepal and concave synsepal are .32 to .4” [8 to 10 mm] long and the shorter petals are entire and narrowly acute. The lip is transversely cordate and sharply obtuse with broadly rounded basal lobes to either side of an acutely deflexed base. A low callus lies just within the basal margins. Almost all photos on the net are not this species.
Synonyms Humboldtia secunda (Poepp. & Endl.) Kuntze 1891; Humboltia secunda (Poepp. & Endl.) Kuntze 1891;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Nov. Gen. Sp. Pl. 1: 49 Poepp. & Endl. 1836;
Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth Vol 4 1958 not;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing not = P lindenii; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 drawing good;
Selbyana 1: 286 Luer 1975 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 48 No 10 1979 photo fide;
Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = P secunda/bicornis in part;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide;
The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992;
Venezuela, Paraiso de Orquideas Romero 1997 photo fide;
Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo yes & No;
An Illustrated Field Guide to the Orchids of the Yotoco Forest Reserve Colombia Kolanowska, Escobar, Sanchez & Szlachetko 2011 drawing fide
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