Trichosalpinx ligulata Luer & Hirtz 1997 SUBGENUS Tubella Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common NameThe Tongue-Like Trichosalpinx [refers to the shape of the lip]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador in cloud forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations around 1800 to 2350 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 4, microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, red purple, coriaceous, broadly elliptical, obtuse, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a filiform, loose, to 1" [ to 2.5 cm] long, simultaneously few flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul.

"Similar to T intricata but differs in having flowers with longer sepaline tails and an essentially lobeless lip without the pair of characteristic mammillate calli found on the disc near the forward angles of the lobes of the lip of T intricata." Luer 1997

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing fide;

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