Scaphosepalum dalstroemii Luer 1984 SECTION Leiocaulium Luer 1988
Photo By Steven Beckendorf and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name Dalstroem's Scaphosepalum [Swedish Botanist and discoverer of species, current]
Flower Size 3/4" [ 2 cm]
Found in Loja province of Ecuador near the Peruvian border at elevations around 2600 to 3150 meters in cloud forests as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate-elliptical, acute leaf that narrows gradually into the slender petiole and blooms in the summer on an ascending to horizontal, loose to congested, smooth, slender, to 4" [10 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence with thin, tubular floral bracts.
This species is similar to the much more common, lower elevation Scaphosepalum breve but differs in the smooth inflorescence of the former.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol V Systematics of Dresslerella and Scaphosepalum Luer 1988 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 375 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing ok; Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide;
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