Pleurothallis tetrachaeta Luer & Hirtz 1998 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Acroniae SERIES Amphygiae Luer 1998
Photos by © Kevin Holcomb
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website
EARLY 
Common Name The 4 Haired Pleurothallis [refers to the hair-like apices of the sepals and petals]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm] wide by 3" [7.5 cm] long
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador in wet forests at elevations around 750 meters as a miniature to small sized, warm growing epiphyte with a slender, suberect ramicaul enveloped close tubular sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, subspreading, thinly coriaceous, ovate, acute, long mucronate, broadly cuneate to rounded below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an ascending, arising through a prostrate spathe at the base of the leaffascile of 1 to 1.4" [2.5 to 3.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bract.
"Closely allied to P quadricaudata and P tipuloides but P tetrachaeta has long peduncles that bears the flower beyond the tip of the leaf instead of midway. The sepals and petals with long-attenuated apices are inseparable from those of the other two mentioned species. The lip however is only half the size and without basal lobes." Luer 2007
" SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Acroniae SERIES Amphygiae Luer 1998 contains several species with proportionately large flowers, the lateral sepals completely connate into a long, narrowly attenuate synsepal, with the similarly shaped petals varying from two-thirds as long to as long as the synsepal. P quadricaudata and P tetrachaeta Luer share a triangular-sagittate lip with a narrowly acute apex, while the apical lobe of the lip of P tipuloides is narrowly triangular with a sharply acute apex. The lip of P. thoerleae is short and rounded, with an abruptly protruding apiculum." Luer 2012
Synonyms Acronia tetrachaeta (Luer & Hirtz) Luer 2005
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVII Luer 2005 as Acronia tetrachaeta
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