Pleurothallis compressa Luer 1996 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciclatae Lindl. 1859
Photos by © Walter Schug
Photo courtesy of Daniel Jimenez ©
Common Name The Compressed Pleurothallis [refers to the laterally compressed ramicaul]
Flower Size .2" [5mm]
Found in Costa Rica at elevations around 1500 meters as a miniature to small sized, warm growing epiphyte with slender, erect, sharply compressed ramicauls with a sheath in the lower 1/3 and 2 at the base and deccurrent into the deflexed, single, coriaceous, concave, ovate, acuminate to the acute apex, abruptly narrowing below into the shallowly cordate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a fascile of successive single flowers arising through a suberect spathe and tubular floral bracts.
Set apart from others in the section by the sharply compressed ramicauls carrying a deflexed leaf that is decurrent for a least one centimeter somewhat like some species within the section Ancipita. It also has small brown flowers protruding from the spathe and face downward. The sides of the dorsal sepal and synsepal as well as the subfalcate petals are reflexed. Lastly the triangular lip has a pyramidical callus fit beneath the colum withn the glenion and the viscidium in apposition.
Synonyms Acronia compressa [Luer]Luer 2005; Zosterophyllanthos compressus (Luer) Szlach. & Kulak 2006
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Luer 2005 as Acronia compressa drawing fide; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide; Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 26, No. 1 2021, The Researchgate Website photo/drawing fide;
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