Scaphosepalum breve (Rchb. f.) Rolfe 1890 SECTION Scaphosepalum
Photo by Jean Marie Vanderwinden
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by Andy's Orchids Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved.
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Later EARLY
Common Name The Short Scaphosepalum [refers to the smaller flower]
Flower Size 1/2" [1.25 cm]
Found from the Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and also in Bolivia in cloud forests at elevations of 500 to 2200 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute leaf that gradually narrows to the slender, channeled petiole that blooms in the summer fall and early winter on a loose, sharply flexuous, verrucose, slender, successively several to many flowered, 2" to 10" [5 to 25 cm] long, racemose inflorescence with conduplicate floral bracts.
Synonyms *Masdevallia brevis Rchb. f. 1883; Scaphosepalum nutans Kraenzl. 1922; Scaphosepalum trachypus Schltr. 1919
References <W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten I Venezuela Schlechter 1919 as S trachypus; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol V Systematics of Dresslerella and Scaphosepalum Luer 1988 drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 64 No 3 1995; Venezuela; Paraiso de Orquideas Romero 1997 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok; Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide;
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