Pleurothallis virgata Luer 1998 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Website
Common Name The Twiggy Pleurothallis [refers to the branching habit]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Cajamarca, Huancabamba, Huanuco and Libertad departments of Peru in wet montane forests at elevations around 1800 to 3500 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, densely caespitose terrestrial with fasciculate, superposed, stout to slender ramicauls enveloped by a long tubular sheath near the middle and several, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring, summer and fall on 1 to 3, simultaneous slender, more or less secund, arising through a spathe with an annulus below the abscission layer, 2.8 to 6" [7 to 15 cm] long, densely and simultaneously many flowered inflorecence with an infundibular, imbricating, shorter than the ovary floral bract
"Distinguished by the prolific habit of the ramicauls. The lower ramicaul is stout, fasciculate and elongate before it produces 1 to 3 more, but shorter ramicauls at the apex that are also prolific. Dense, branching, shrublike plants are produced, much like Myoxanthus frutex. Numerous congested racemes are about as long as the leaf. The flowers are small with fleshy sepals and a proportionally small, trilobed lip with large, intramural calli." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe virgata (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis virgata (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;
Lindleyana 16(4): 267. Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Stelis virgata;
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