Trichosalpinx rotundata (C.Schweinf.) Dressler 1997 SUBGENUS Trichosalpinx
Photo by © Bob and B2 Photography and their Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Photo Webpage
Common Name The Round Trichosalpinx [refers to the leaf]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica and Panama at elevations around 400 to 1600 meters as a miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with comparatively stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 10, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a suberect to spreading to horizontal, coriaceous, dark green above, purple beneath, broadly elliptical to suborbucular, obtuse to rounded, abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and again in the summer on a filiform, congested, to .4" [to 10 mm] long, simultaneously 2 to 3 flowered inflorescence arising from behind the leaf, from near the apex of the ramicaul.
"Closely related to T orbicularis but is distinguished by the usually larger habit with larger, convex, horizontal leaves and larger flowers borne beneath. The sepals are slender and ciliate and the apices of the lateral sepals are thickened and tail-like and more or less recurved, as sometimes seen in T orbicularis. The narrowly acute lip is minutely ciliate-denticulate in T orbicularis." Luer 1997
Synonyms Pleurothallis operculata Luer 1981; Pleurothallis rotundata C.Schweinf. 1937; Trichosalpinx operculata (Luer) Luer 1983
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 as Pleurothallis rotundata; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
