Restrepia contorta (Ruiz & Pav.) Luer 1996 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Photos by © Milan Vágner
Drawing of Ecuadorian specimen
Photo/Drawings by © Carl Luer
to
THROUGH
Common Name The Twisted Restrepia
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
From Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 1300 to 3200 meters as a small sized, cool to warm growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls, enveloped basally by 5 dry, acuminate sheaths, carrying a single, apical, erect, often suffused with purple beneath, elliptical-ovate, subacute, broadly cuneate to rounded and contracted below into the twisted petiolate baseleaf that blooms in the spring through fall on a terminal, fascile, peduncle wiry, arising on the back side of the leaf, 1.6 to 3.2" [4 to 8 cm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with a thin, tubular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"Vegetatively the plants vary from small to large. The ramicauls are clad in loose, imbricating sheaths common to all in the genus. The lowermost are spotted with black or dark brown. The leaves vary considerably in size and shape from elliptic to ovate. The slender, flexble peduncles bear the flowers near or beyond the apex of the leaves. The dorsal sepal is erect, narrowly ovate, attenuated above with a clavate apex. The synsepal is elliptical, concave at the base, with the apex more or less subacute to obtuse and shortly bifid. The synsepal is variously spotted, from numerous, diffusely scattered, small dots to large spots, sparsdely scattered to coalescing towards the base. The basic color grades from yellow, orange to rose to purple and the spots vary from purple to brown. The petals are slender withaq clavate apex. The thin membraneous margins above the base vary from entire to microscopically serrulate, often with a minute, capillary appendage. The lip is spotted, much the same as the synsepal. It is more or less constricted below the middle which forms an oblong epichile distinct from the subquadrate, concave hypochile. The margins posses the minute, delicate, uncinate proceses. The blade or epichile is flat and more or less truncate. The margins are variously denticulate to fringed. The surface is cariably verrucose. The width of the epichile above the isthmus also varies. Several variations approach the transverses apex of Restrepia pandurata . Large flowers with an oblong lip that is barely if at all constricted meet the criteria for Restrepia guttulata ." Luer 1996
Synonyms *Humboldtia contorta Ruiz & Pavon 1798; Humboltia contorta Ruiz & Pav. 1798; Pleurothallis fimbrilabia C. Schweinf. 1953; Pleurothallis maculata subsp. ecuadoriensis [Schlechter]H. Mohr 1996; Restrepia apiculata Luer 1982; Restrepia caucana Schlechter 1920; Restrepia ecuadorensis Rolfe 1892; Restrepia maculata Lindl. 1846; Restrepia maculata subsp. ecuadoriensis (Rolfe) H.Mohr 1996; Restrepia pardina Lem. 1869; Restrepia punctulata Lindley 1859; Stelis contorta [Ruiz & Pavon]Pers. 1807
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 as R maculata; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten II Colombia Schlechter 1920 as R caucana; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 as R guttulata drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 37 # 6 1968 as R maculata photo fide; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 as R guttulata drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela a Field Guide Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as R guttulata drawing fide;
Selbyana 7: 126 Luer 1982 as E apiculata; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 2 1991 as R maculata; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 2 1991 as R caucana; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 2 1991 as R pardina; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 2 1991 R ecuadoriense; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 as R antennifera var maculada photo #548 fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 as R antennifera var puntillosa photo #549 hmm; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 as R maculata photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 368 Bennett & Christenson 1995 as Restrepia maculata drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawing fide to the first photo/ photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata; Oasis Vol 1 No 1 2000 photo; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orchid Australia Vol 12 No 1 2000 photo; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo ok; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo ok, AOS Bulletin Vol 74 No 11 2005 drawing fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007; Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide; Orquideologia Vol 28 #1 2011 photo fide; An Illustrated Field Guide to the Orchids of the Yotoco Forest Reserve Colombia Kolanowska, Escobar, Sanchez & Szlachetko 2011 drawing/photo ok; Orchid Digest Vol 79 #3 2015 photo fide;
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