Trichosalpinx otarion (Luer) Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Tubella Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Litle Eared Trichosalpinx [refers to the basal lobes of the lip]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador and San Martin department of Peru in cloud forests at elevations around 2650 to 3600 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, relatively stout to slender ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7 closely adpressed, dark brown, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coricaeous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on 1 occasionally 2, dense, strict, secund, 2.4 to 5.2" [6 to 13 cm] long including the 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul.

" Characterized by the relatively large, elliptical leaf surpassed by a long, crowded, strict, secund raceme of many simultaneous flowers. The sepals are long-attenuate, the petals are acute and the lip is tri-lobed. The lobes are basal, auriculate and minutely pubescent." Luer 1997

Synonyms *Pleurothallis otarion Luer 1982; Tubella otarion (Luer) Archila 2000

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Selbyana 7: 1 Luer 1982 as Pleurothalis otarion; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing fide;

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