Pleurothallis bracteosa C.Schweinf. 1970 SUBGENUS Pseudostelis TYPE for the SUBGENUS

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

Common Name The Full of Bracts Pleurothallis [refers to the floral bracts]

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found in Cuzco department of Peru in montane forests at elevations around 2400 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped a close tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a distichous, erect, strict, to 6” [15 cm] long including the 1.6” [3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a slender spathe with inflated, imbricating floral bracts.

"Characterized by the slender, caespitose habit the narrow leaves about as long as the ramicaul, and blooming on a slender, erect, congested raceme of small flowers engulfed by the equally to longer than the flowers floral bract. The se[als are fleshy, subcarinate and single veined, the petals are oblong and obtuse and the lip is tri-lobed with the anterior lobe oblong with bullous-loke verrucosities." Luer 1999

Synonyms Stelis bracteosa (C.Schweinf.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Macchu Picchu Orchids Eric Christenson 2003;

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