Type Photo

Photo by Dr Leslie Garay

EARLY

Common Name The Hammer-Like Lip Pleurothallis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Colombia and Ecuador at elevations of 1500 to 2500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, eret, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below intot he petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and early winter on an erect, flexible, flexuous, loose, filiform, to 2.4” [6 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2” [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul.

This species can be color variable into clear yellow-brown colors

Synonyms Muscarella cestrochila (Garay) Luer 2006; Specklinia cestrochila (Garay) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orquideología 8: 180. Garay 1973 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 2001 as Specklina cestrochilus; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVIII Luer 2006 as Muscarella cestrochila drawing fide; Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Muscarella cestrochila photo fide

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