Pleurothallis batillacea Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

LATER EARLY

Common Name The Shovel-Like Pleurothallis [refers to the large lip]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Colombia and Ecuador on road embankments in cloud forests at elevations of 1600 to 2700 meters as a small to large sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial or epiphyte with fasiculate, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath near the middle an d 2 to 3, tubular, imbricating, loose sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical to suborbicular, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer and early fall on 1 to 5, racemose, simultaneous, 7.2 to 10.8" [18 to 27 cm] long, including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, secund, densely simultaneously many flowered inflorescence ariosing through a broad spathe from an annulus just below the anscission layer with inflated floral bracts.

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe batillacea (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis batillacea (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Luer 1998 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 as Crocodeilanthe batillacea

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