Trichosalpinx semilunata (Luer) Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Tubella Luer 1986
Photo by © Rodrigo Escobar
Photos by © Milan Vágner
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
and 
Common Name Thr Cresent Shaped Trichosalpinx [refers to the calli of the lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found from the central cordillera of Colombia to southwestern Ecuador at elevations of 460 to 2100 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 3 to 7 minutely scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse leaf that is cuneate below into the petiole that blooms in the spring and fall on a fascile of loose, simultaneously 1 to 3 flowered, .4" [1 cm] long, racemose inflorescence arsing from near the apex of the ramicaul.
"Distinguished by the short, few flowered racemes of pale yellow flowers with acute sepals and subacute petals. The lip is thick, arcuate, oblong with erect margins below the middle. The middle third of the disc is filled by a pair of thick, semilunate calli. Most distinctive is a pair of nipple-like calli on the under side of the column." Luer 1997
Synonyms *Pleurothallis semilunata Luer 1976; Trichosalpinx dithele Luer & R. Escobar 1983; Tubella semilunata (Luer) Archila 2000
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Selbyana 3: 184 Luer 1976 as Pleurothallis semilunata drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 259 Dodson 1980 as Pleurothallis semilunata drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol 16 No 2 1984 as T dithele photo/drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 photo not; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing fide
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