Pleurothallis tapantiensis Pupulin, M Diaz & Pridgeon 2020 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859

Photo by Franco Pupulin and Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 26, No. 1 2021, The Researchgate Website

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Common Name The Tapanti Pleurothallis [A Costa Rican National Park]

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in San Jose province of Costa Rica in premontane wet forest on the Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca in lower montane rain forests to wet montane forests at elevations around 1300 to 1800 meters as a small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphtye with erect, terete, slender, yellowish green ramicauls enveloped by 2 basal, tubular, obtuse, glumaceous, pale green with purple warts becoming papyraceous, brown sheaths and carrying a single, apical, horizontal becoming curved-subpendent with age, thinly coriaceous, grass green, matte, sessile, flexible, ovate, narrowly acute, acuminate, deeply cordate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a .68" [1.7 cm] long, arising through a rectangular, reclining, brown, papery spathe, single flowered inflorescence.

"Among the species of Pleurothallis close to P. cardiothallis provided with a peltate lip, which besides P. cardiothallis also includes in Costa Rica P. navisepala. Pleurothallis tapantiensis may be easily recognized by the lip that is glabrous and concolorous purple underneath (vs. papillose, whitish), with the apical margins straight (vs. involute, forming a pseudoapicule), provided for all its length with thin, irregular, transverse grooves. Like most other species in this group, the flowers of Pleurothallis tapantiensis are temporarily active, likely in response to the levels of light and environmental humidity (Pupulin, Díaz-Morales, Aguilar, et al., 2017). The flowers open early in the morning and usually remain fully spread until noon, when the petals incurve and the lateral sepals lose turgor and fold over each other. The process repeats for 4 to 6 days, after which the flower fades and detaches from the pedicel" Pupulin etal 2021

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 drawing/photo fide

Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 26, No. 1 2021, The Researchgate Website photo/drawing fide;

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