Pleurothallis fantastica Ames 1936 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859 >

Photo by © Daniel Jimenez and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Part shade WarmCool WinterSpingr

Common Name The Fantastic Pleurothallis

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Cartago, Puntarenas and San Jose provinces of Costa Rica at elevations 950 to 1400 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with descending, horizontal, slightly compressed above ramciaul enveloped below the middle by a closely adpressed, tubular sheath and another 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, spreading, pendent, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, more or less incurved sides, concave at the subcordate to cuneate base leaf witht he margins decurrent on the ramicaul for about .8" [2 cm] that blooms in the summer ona successive single flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe and has thin, tubualr floral bracts.

"It is easy to distinguish Pleurothallis fantastica from any other species in the genus by the long, narrow, pendent leaves borne on a distally ancipitous ramicaul, which are cuneate (not cordate) at the base, and the flower showing a distinctly 3-lobed lip, the lateral lobes broad, elliptic, spread out, and the midlobe small, excised." Pupulin 2021

Synonyms Acronia fantastica (Ames) Luer 2005; Pleurothallis horichii Luer 1985; Zosterophyllanthos horichii (Luer) Szlach. & Marg. 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVII Systematics of Dryadella and Acronia Section Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 as Acronia fantastica 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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