Pleurothallis leopardina Luer 1981 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Longiracemosae [Luer] Luer 1998

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

Common Name The Leopard-Like Pleurothallis [refers to the spotted sepals]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador at elevations of 2400 to 3200 meters as a miniature to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a thin, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, acute, broadly cuneate below into the the sessile base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on 1 to 6, erect to arching, subdense, distichous to subsecund, 2.4 to 4.4" [6 to 11 cm] long including the .4 to 1.6" [1 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a slender spathe at the base of the leaf and has an infundibular floral bract.

"Similar to P divaricans but differs in the slightly larger plan with an elliptical leaf carrying several, many flowered racemes of small, dark red to purple spotted flowers. The petals are thickened and obtuse and the lip is broadly ovate and concave without deflexion and is distinguiashed by a pair of low, rounded calli above the middle." Luer

Synonyms Pleurothallis atrorubra Luer & Hirtz 1996

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide;

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