Rodriguezia delcastilloi D.E.Benn. & Christenson 1994

TYPE Drawing by © Esparza, Bennett & Christenson

Common Name del Castillo's Rodriguezia [Peruvian Original Co-collector of species curent]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Pasco department of Peru wet tropical forests at elevations around 250 meters as a miniature to small sized, hot growing caespitose epiphyte with elliptic, complanate, ancipitous pseudobulbs enveloped basally by 3 to 4 pairs of distichous, imbricating, uppermost foliaceous, subequal to the leaf sheaths and carrying a single, apical, oblong, obliquely bilobed, obtuse, stiffly coriaceous, margin uneven and undulate, flat then attenuate to the shortly conduplicate base leaf that blooms in the fall on several, axillary, 1.6 to 2.4" [ 4 to 6 cm] long, fractiflex, sucessively 5 to 7 densely flowered inflorescence carrying greenish white flowers becoming white after 2 to 3 days, the callus very pale yellow and all segments with microscopic intercellular crystals.

Very close to R luteola but R delcastilloi is distinguished by the lightly rugose, thin, stiffly coriaceous, flat leaves, the bluntly obtuse dorsal sepal and the strigose column with a pair of minute, horizontal, triangular auricles.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 372 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing fide; LANKESTERIANA 14(1) 2014

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