Pleurothallis verbiformis Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE
EARLY
Common Name The Whip-Like Pleurothallis [refers to the long slender inflorescence]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Chimborazo province of Ecuador and in Cajamarca department of Peru in cloud forests at elevations around 1500 to 2500 meters as a miniature to just medium sized, cool to cold growing, denselycaespitose epiphyte or occasional terrestrial with fasciculate, slender, erect ramicauls with a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-linear,subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall and winter on a slender, secund, arising through a slender spathe, 6 to 14" [15 to 35 cm] long including the 2.4 to 4" [6 to 10 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with a sometimes prominent, tubular, as long as the ovary floral bract.
"Vegetatively resembles P deregularis of the subgenus Pleurothallis, but easily distinguished by the longer, narrowly elliptical leaf and a solitary, much longer inflorescence. The floral bracts sometimes cause the rachis to appear saw-toothed. The flowers are more or less cylindrical with minutely ciliate sepals that are connate to about the middle. The petals are membraneous, suborbicular and 1 to faintly 3 veined. Although much smaller tha ovate lip with a pair of calli near the middle is simialar to P ligulata and its numerous relatives. The base is narrowly concave below a transverse callous." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe verbiformis (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis verbiformis (Luer) 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;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide as Crocodeilanthe verbiformis;
Lindleyana 16: 4:267 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis verbiformis;
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