Pleurothallis zunagensis Luer & Hirtz 1998 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Full shade Cold LATERSummer

Common Name The Rio Zunag Pleurothallis [A river in Pastaza Ecuador]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2400 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with fasciculate, erect ramicauls enveloped by a long tubular sheath above the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer on a 1 to 3, subdense, secund, arising and enveloped by a slender spathe with an annulus, 4.4 to 4.8" [11 to 12 cm] long, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"Similar to P velaticaulis but differs in the long, tubular, cauline sheath above the middle, shorter racemes, flowers with the sides of the sepals markedly revolute and the most distinctive lip. The lip is smaller than the short, thick column and articulated to the tip of the free base of the column by a very small, superficial, basal cavity. The apical lobe is convex with a callus. The lobes near the middle are erect and rounded with the anterior margin thickened. Below the middle the disc is concave." Luer 1998

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe zunagensis (Luer & Hirtz) Luer 2004; Stelis zunagensis (Luer & Hirtz) 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

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;

Lindleyana 16 4:268 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis zunagensis;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Crocodeilanthe zunagensis;

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