Pleurothallis tenebrosa Luer 1999 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Antenniferae Luer 1998
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website
Common Name The Dark Pleurothallis [refers to the dark center of the flower]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Zulia state of Venezuela at elevations around 1500 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with a slender, erect to suberect ramicaul enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another 1 to 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, strict, lax, secund, 1 to 1.4" [2.5 to 4 cm] long, simultaneously few to several flowered inflorescence with tubular, half as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the elliptical, sessile leaves carrying shorter racemes of small, tan flowers with a prominent, dark-purple-brown suffusion across the lower half of the lip and column. The lip is transversely ovate with broadly rounded lateal margins and apex." Luer 1999
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as P sanluisii drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing good;
Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 as Stelis tenebrosaphoto fide;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as Dracontia tenebrosa photo fide
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